x-w.^. ..  '?";3'~*J?^™»S 


I 


BR  121  .W59 

Worcester,  Noah,  1758-1837 
Causes  and  evils  of 
contentions 


CAUSES  AND  EVIL 


OF 


CONTENTIONS 


UNVEILED    IN 


LETTERS   TO   CHRISTIANS 


BY    NOAH    WORCESTER. 


BOSTON: 
PUBLISHED    BY    GRAY&BOWEN. 

1831. 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year 
1831,  by  Gray  &  Bowen,  in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the 
District  Court  of  Massachusetts. 


Peirce  «S&  Parker Printers. 


CONTENTS 


LETTER  I.  Introductory  Observations,  -  -  -  -  6 
"        II.    A  Primary  Ground  of  Alienation  among  Cbris- 

tiajQS, 9 

"       III.    The  Truth  as  hated  by  the  Wicked,        -        -  17 

"  IV.  An  Important  Question  answered,  -  -  22 
"         v.    Two  Examples  of  Error  from  the  Ambiguity 

of  Language, -  33 

"       VI.    The  Messiah's  censures  of  the  Scribes  and 

Pharisees, 41 

"      VII.    Paul's  censures  of  Schismatic  Teachers,        -  46 

"    VIII.    Paurs  account  of  the  Natural  Man,        -        -  51 

"       IX.    The  Injunctions  and  Examples  of  Christ,         -  60 

"        X.    Paul's  Reasonings  with  Contending  Christians,  69 

"       XI.    The  Apostle  James  on  Censorious  Judging,    -  73 

"     XII.   False  Standards  occasion  False  Estimates,      -  77 

"  XIIL    The  Disregarded  Parable,       ....  86 

"  XIV.     Example  of  the  Four  Evangelists,  -        -        -  91 

"     XV.    Pernicious  Effects  of  Censorious  Judging,       -  95 

"    XVL    Vices  Compared, ICO 

"  XVII.    The  Gospel  Remedy  for  Contention,      -         -  104 

"XVm.    Conclusion, 114 

Postscript,              119 


LETTERS   TO   CHRISTIANS. 


LETTER  L 

INTRODUCTORY    OBSERVATIONS. 

'My  Christian  Brethren^ 

Knowing  that  the  time  of  his  crucifixion  was 
at  hand,  our  Saviour  took  an  opportunity  to  prepare 
the  minds  of  his  disciples  for  the  event,  by  commu- 
nicating such  instructions  as  they  were  then  able  to 
bear,  and  such  as  he  wished  them  to  obseive.  It 
was  in  this  discourse  that  he  gave  them  his  "  New 
Commandment"  which  he  repeated  again  and  again 
"  that  ye  love  one  another  as  I  have  loved  you." 
He  also  said  to  them,  "  By  this  shall  all  men  know 
that  ye  are  my  disciples  if  ye  have  love  one  to  anoth- 
er." He  forewarned  them  of  the  trials  which  they 
would  have  to  endure  as  his  disciples,  and  promised 
to  send  to  them  the  Comforter,  which  is  the  Holy 
Spirit.  He  not  only  assured  them  that  they  were 
beloved  by  himself,  but  also  beloved  by  the  Father 
At  the  close  of  the  interview  he  poured  forth  the 
desires  of  his  soul  in  fervent  prayer  to  the  Father, 

A 


b  LETTERS 

not  only  for  his  apostles  but  for  all  that  should  be- 
come believers  on  him  through  the  instrumentality 
of  their  preaching  in  his  name.  The  following  are 
important  portions  of  his  prayer.  '*  Neither  pray  I 
for  these  alone,  but  for  thern  also  who  shall  believe 
on  me  through  their  word  ;  that  they  all  may  be  one 
as  thou  Father  art  in  me  and  I  in  thee,  that  they 
may  be  one  in  us,  that  the  world  niay  know  that 
thou  hast  sent  me."     John  17.  2i),  21. 

It  is  remarkable  of  what  importance  it  seems  to 
have  been  in  his  view  that  his  apostles  and  all  his 
disciples  should  love  one  another,  and  be  one  as  he 
and  the  Father  are  one.  But  why  this  fervency  for 
love  and  union  among  his  disciples  ?  The  reason 
is   assigned   in    the   following   words — "  That  the 

WORLD  MAY  BELIE\^E  THAT  THOU  HAST  SENT  ME." 

To  believe  that  the  Father  sent  him  was  to  believe 
that  he  was  not  an  impostor,  but  the  promised  Mes- 
siah, whom  God  had  sent  to  be  the  Light  and  the 
Saviour  of  the  world. 

The  words  of  Christ  very  clearly  import  that  in 
his  view  the  progress  of  the  gospel  and  the  conver- 
sion of  the  world  to  the  Christian  faith,  greatly  de- 
pended on  the  mutual  love  and  union  of  those  who 
believe  in  him  ;  that  such  love  and  union  are  adapt- 
ed to  bring  others  to  believe  in  him,  as  the  way,  the 
truth,  and  the  life.  When  Christians  thus  walk  in 
love  thoy  exhibit  the  true  spirit  of  Christ  and  his 
gospel,  excite  attention  and  inquiry,  command  es- 
teem, and  produce  conviction  of  the  reality  and 
usefulness   of  the   Christian    religion.     The    spirit 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  7 

of  Christ  then   appears  to  great  advantage  in  con- 
trast with  the  spirit  of  party  and  of  the  world. 

Another  truth  of  awful  import  is  implied  in  this 
prayer  of  Christ,  which  is,  that  alienation  and  dis- 
cord among  professed  believers  in  Christ,  tend  to 
prevent  the  conversion  of  others,  and  to  promote 
infidelity.  If  the  oneness  of  Christians,  or  their 
mutual  love  tends  to  multiply  conversions,  to  the 
Christian  faith,  discord  and  alienation  must  have 
the  contrary  tendency. 

May  it  not  then  be  a  solemn  truth  that  the  party 
strifes  and  contentions  among  professed  believers  in 
Christ,  have  been  the  principal  reasons  why  the 
world  ere  this  day  has  not  been  filled  with  the 
benign  influence  of  the  Gospel — why  so  great  a 
part  of  the  world  is  yet  enveloped  in  pagan  dark- 
ness, and  why  Deism,  and  even  Atheism  still  show 
their  heads  in  Christian  lands  1  How  awful  and 
aflfecting  is  the  thought  that  the  dying  prayer  of 
our  Lord  has  had  so  little  influence  on  the  minds 
of  his  avowed  friends,  and  that  their  anti-christian 
conduct  has  been  the  means  of  preventing  the  pro- 
gress of  the  Gospel  and  the  salvation  of  their  fellow 
men  !  What  real  friend  of  Christ  with  his  prayer 
in  view,  can  reflect  on  the  ecclesiastical  history  of 
Christendom,  or  observe  the  contentions  among 
Christians  at  the  present  day,  without  feeling 
shocked,  grieved  and  ashamed  ?  Surely  if  mu- 
tual love,  or  union  among  Christians  be  an  ap- 
pointed means  for  the  spread  of  the  Gospel,  and 
the  conversion  of  the  world,  it  behooves  Christians 


8  LETTERS 

seriously  to  inquire  what  each  has  to  do  that  the 
stumbling  block  may  be  removed.  It  is  not  to  be 
supposed  that  the  evil  is  limited  to  any  one  or  two 
denominations — nor  that  the  evil  can  be  removed 
by  mutual  sectarian  reproaches  as  a  substitute  for 
mutual  love.  If  the  people  of  each  sect  will  im- 
partially examine  at  home,  and  correct  what  may  be 
found  amiss,  they  will  perhaps  find  enough  to  do  in 
the  work  of  self-reformation,  and  in  cultivating  that 
humility  of  heart  without  which  mutual  love  can 
never  exist  among  Christians. 

All  well  informed  Christians  must  acknowledge 
that  the  conversion  of  the  world  to  the  Christian 
faith,  is  a  desirable  event,  and  one  which  has  long 
been  predicted.  If  the  fulfilment  of  the  prophecy 
has  been  prevented  or  retarded  by  the  want  of  mu- 
tual love  among  Christians,  or  by  the  existence  of  a 
contrary  spirit,  this  state  of  things  must  have  re- 
sulted from  causes  which  should  be  sought  out  and 
set  aside.  It  is  possible  that  much  of  the  evil  has 
resulted  from  the  adoption  of  some  erroneous  prin- 
ciple or  principles,  which  for  want  of  due  examina- 
tion may  have  seemed  to  justify  schism  and  alien- 
ation. 

No  intelligent  Christian  will  dare  to  say  that  the 
prayer  of  the  Messiah,  that  his  disciples  might  be 
one  was  foolish  or  unreasonable.  If  then  it  shall 
be  found  that  a  principle  has  been  extensively 
adopted  which  tends  to  defeat  the  object  of  this 
prayer,  or  which  is  incompatible  with  the  oneness 
for  which  Christ  prayed,  we  may  pretty  safely  infer 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  9 

that  the  principle  is  false  and  delusive.  Or  if  cer- 
tain passages  of  Scripture  have  been  so  interpreted 
as  to  favor  such  a  principle,  we  may  infer  that  the 
interpretations  are  erroneous.  To  show  that  such 
a  principle  and  such  interpretations  have  been 
adopted  will  be  the  object  of  succeeding  Letters  ; 
and  in  doing  this  I  hope  to  unveil  the  root  of  bit- 
terness and  show  its  deleterious  nature. 


LETTER   II. 

A    PRIMARY    GROUND    OF    ALIENATION   AMONG   CHRIS- 
TIANS. 

My  Christian  Brethren, 

For  a  long  time  it  has  been  with  me  an  object 
to  ascertain  the  principle  which  has  for  ages  been 
the  occasion  of  alienation  and  bitterness  among 
Christians.  It  is  not  however  to  be  supposed  that 
the  whole  of  the  evil  is  to  be  ascribed  to  any  one 
principle  or  cause  ;  but,  on  mature  reflection  it  is 
my  belief,  that  a  large  portion  of  the  mischief  is  to 
be  ascribed  to  the  following  hypothesis, —  That  error 
of  opinion  on  religious  subjects  proceeds  from  wick- 
edness of  heart. 

I  have  not  been  able  to  find  any  other  hypothesis 


10  LETTERS 

or  principle  which  so  naturally  accounts  for   the 
alienation    and    hostilities    which    are   so   common 
between  men  of  different  opinions  ;  and  this  prin- 
ciple has  often  been  avowed  by  persons  of  different 
sects.    On  what  other  principle  can  I  feel  alienation 
from  a  brother  whose  opinions  happen  to  be  different 
from  mine,  as  to  the  meaning  of  a  text  of  Scripture  ? 
As  every  man  necessarily  regards  his  own  opinions 
as  correct,  if  I  have  adopted  the  principle  that  error 
proceeds   from   depravity,  I  shall    naturally   impute 
blame  to  every  man  who  dissents   from  me.     But  if 
I  have  not  adopted  this  principle,  and  have  candor 
enough   to    account  for   the   supposed  error  of  my 
brother  on  excusable  grounds,  I  see  no  cause  at  all 
for    alienation  or   censure.     If  in    addition    to    this 
candor,    I    possess     humility    and     self-knowledge 
enough  to  believe,  that  it  is  very  possible  the  error 
in  the  case,  may  be  on  my  own  part,  this  will  surely 
make  me  very  cautious  in  regard  to  imputing   the 
difference  of  opinion  to  my  brother's  depravity. 

As  it  is  my  intention  to  examine  the  subject 
impartially,  I  shall  here  admit,  that  wickedness  of 
heart  is  one  of  many  occasions  of  error  on  religious 
subjects.  In  some  cases  it  may  be  the  principal 
cause;  but  in  others  it  may  have  no  influence  at 
all. 

The  hypothesis  that  error  always  proceeds  from 
wickedness  of  heart,  considered  as  a  principle  of  con- 
duct among  Christians,  appears  to  me  of  the  most 
pernicious  tendency,  and  to  have  as  fair  a  claim  to 
be  regarded  as  the  fruit  of  a  wicked  heart,  as  any 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  11 

doctrine  by  which  any  denomination  of  Christians 
has  been  known.  What  I  have  now  advanced  re- 
specting it  I  shall  aim  to  illustrate  by  various  facts 
and  considerations. 

1.  If  the  principle  is  just  and  may  be  safely  acted 
upon,  it  is  a  weapon  which  may  be  wielded  by  each 
sect  against  all  others.  For  conscientious  men  of 
every  sect  must  regard  every  thing  as  error  which 
contradicts  their  own  real  opinions.  Each  must 
therefore  think  that  if  any  one  has  a  right  to  apply 
the  principle,  it  must  be  so  with  himself  His  oppo- 
nent may  think  the  same.  Hence  a  scene  of 
mutual  accusation  and  reproach  will  naturally 
result.  But  who  can  conceive  of  a  more  anti- 
christian  state  of  society,  than  this  principle  would 
produce,  if  universally  adopted  and  reduced  to  prac- 
tice ] 

2.  The  principle  encourages  the  indulgence  of  a 
temper  the  reverse  of  that  which  is  inculcated  by  the 
Gospel.  "  Let  each  esteem  others  better  than  him- 
self"— Charity  or  love  "  thinketh  no  evil — hopeth  all 
things" — *•'  worketh  no  ill  to  its  neighbor."  How 
different  the  feelings  indulged  by  him  who  imputes 
the  supposed  errors  of  dissenting  brethren  to  the 
wickedness  of  their  hearts.  He  will  of  course 
think  himself  better  than  others — think  evil  of  them, 
hope  little  or  nothing ;  and  what  he  calls  love  will 
work  evil  to  his  neighbor,  and  dispose  him  to  defame 
and  revile.  The  more  his  mind  is  imbued  with  this 
principle,  the  more  he  will  trust  in  himself  that  he 
is  righteous  and  despise  others. 


13  LETTERS 

Every  man  who  has  sense  enough  to  know  that 
the  opinions  of  others  differ  from  his,  may  also 
know  that  his  opinions  differ  from  theirs.  How 
then  are  we  to  account  for  the  fact,  that  of  the 
many  who  ascribe  error  to  the  depravity  of  heart,  so 
few  of  them  are  seen  to  suspect  that  their  own 
opinions  proceed  from  this  corrupt  source  ?  Does 
not  this  single  fact  evince  a  great  want  of  self- 
knowledge  and  humility,  too  great  a  propensity  to 
look  abroad  for  faults,  and  too  little  desire  to  cleanse 
first  that  which  is  within  ? 

3.  From  the  preceding  remarks  it  would  be  very 
natural  to  suspect,  that  the  censorious  principle  has 
been  much  more  frequently  adopted  by  men  who 
were  themselves  in  gross  errors,  than  by  those  who 
delight  in  the  truth.  It  may  therefore  be  proper  to 
look  into  history  and  inquire,  who  have  been  the 
men  most  forward  to  act  on  this  principle  ? 

If  we  go  back  to  the  time  of  the  Messiah's  minis- 
try, we  shall  find  that  the  principle  was  applied  to  him, 
and  that  on  this  ground  he  was  accused,  arraigned, 
and  crucified.  He  dissented  from  the  pharisees  as 
to  what  was  lawful  to  be  done  on  the  Sabbath ; 
on  which  ground  they  said,  "  We  hnow  that  this  man 
is  a  sinner."  He  claimed  to  be  "  the  Son  of  God  ;" 
this  they  pronounced  to  be  blasphemy,  and  deserv- 
ing of  death.  On  which  part  was  the  error  in 
these  cases  ? 

Who  was  in  error  when  Paul  thought  he  "  ought 
to  do  many  things  contrary  to  Jesus  of  Nazareth  ?'* 
or  when  the  apostles  were  persecuted  as  men  who 


TO   CHRISTIANS.  13 

turned  the  world  upside  down  ?  Who  was  in  the 
wrong  when  papists  persecuted  the  protestants  ?  Or 
when  the  English  hierarchy  caused  our  ancestors  to 
emigrate  to  this  country  ?  In  all  these  cases  the 
persecutors  acted  on  the  principle  that  error  pro- 
ceeds from  wickedness  of  heart.  Indeed  this  is 
the  fundamental  principle  of  all  persecution. 

Should  it  be  asked,  who  were  in  the  wrong  when 
protestants  persecuted  papists  ?  I  answer,  the  pro- 
testants. The  papists  might  be  in  error  respect- 
ing the  questions  in  dispute ;  but  in  persecuting 
them  for  their  opinions,  the  protestants  acted  on  the 
worst  error  of  popery.  It  has  been  so  in  all  the 
forms  of  persecution  which  protestants  of  different 
sects  have  carried  on  against  each  other.  In  how 
many  instances  have  honest  and  peaceable  men 
been  persecuted  because  they  refused  to  engage 
in  the  works  of  war  and  military  murder  !  Or 
because  they  were  unwilling  to  engage  in  sectarian 
strife  ! 

4.  Every  man  deerns  the  principle  in  question 
unjust,  when  acted  upon  towards  himself  Even 
the  men  who  are  most  forward  to  impute  error  to 
wickedness  of  heart,  are  very  sure  to  raise  the  cry 
of  persecution  when  others  apply  the/principle  to 
themselves.  This  is  surely  a  circumstance  which 
deserves  attention.  For  it  is  similar  to  what  uni- 
formly occurs  in  the  sanguinary  wars  of  nations. 
On  each  side  the  partizans  practise  and  justify 
revenge  in  their  own  soldiers,  but  condemn  the 
same  thing  as  murder  when  practised  by  the  oppos- 
ing party. 


14  LETTERS 

5.  It  will  probably  be  neither  denied  nor  doubted 
that  the  papal  Inquisition  was  founded  on  the  prin- 
ciple that  error  of  opinion  proceeds  from  wicked- 
ness of  heart;  nor  that  the  myriads  of  victims 
which  have  been  murdered  by  these  terrific  tribu- 
nals, were  put  to  death  on  the  same  principle. 
Should  it  be  said  that  this  has  been  an  abuse  of  the 
principle  ;  I  may  ask,  when  has  the  principle  ever 
been  applied  but  in  acts  of  abuse  or  injustice? 

6.  This  principle  when  associated  with  party 
spirit  has  often  so  bewildered  the  minds  of  men, 
that  they  have  thought  ihey  were  pleasing  God  by 
the  most  flagrant  violations  of  his  law,  and  by  the 
most  atrocious  acts  of  injustice  towards  fellow  men. 
By  such  delusions  men  were  led  to  fulfil  our  Lord's 
prediction,  "  The  time  will  come  when  he  that  kill- 
eth  you  will  think  he  doeth  God  service."  Under 
such  a  malignant  influence  men  can  seldom  see  any 
thing  good  in  the  objects  of  their  censure ;  for  they 
are  prepared  to  impute  the  most  benevolent  and  self- 
denying  acts  to  wicked  motives,  or  a  diabolical 
agency;  and  if  reproved  for  their  censoriousness 
they  can  exclaim,  "  Thou  wast  altogether  born  in 
sin,  and  dost  thou  teach  us  ?"  Though  this  excla- 
mation may  seldom  be  expressed  in  these  words,  it 
may  be  intelligibly  expressed  by  contemptuous  smiles 
insinuations  and  gestures. 

7.  Were  it  a  revealed  and  unquestionable  truth, 
that  error  always  proceeds  from  depravity  of  heart, 
still  no  uninspired  person  could  safely  act  on  the 
principle  in    his  treatment  of  Christian    brethren. 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  15 

For  when  a  disagreement  of  opinion  occurs  between 
brethren  as  to  the  meaning  of  a  text  of  Scripture  ; 
who  that  is  not  inspired,  can  certainly  know  that  the 
error  is  not  on  his  own  part  ?  In  such  a  case,  humil- 
ity, benevolence,  and  a  consciousness  of  liability  to 
err,  would  naturally  restrain  the  meek  and  lowly 
from  wielding  the  weapon  of  censure  against  his 
brother's  heart ;  yet  the  self-sufficient  Pharisee  would 
not  hesitate  practically  to  say  to  his  dissenting  broth- 
er, "Stand  by  thyself,  for  I  am  holier  than  thou;" 
it  is  owing  to  the  wickedness  of  your  heart  that  you 
do  not  see  with  me.  Be  as  humble  as  I  am,  and  you 
will  think  as  I  do. 

Is  it  not  then,  a  clear  case  that  this  principle  is  far 
less  likely  to  be  resorted  toby  the  righteous,  than  by 
the  wicked  ?  When  this  weapon  falls  into  the  hands 
of  party  spirit,  it  will  assuredly  be  employed  for  party 
purposes,  and  those  who  wield  it,  will  be  pretty  sure 
to  call  evil  good  and  good  evil,  to  put  darkness  for 
light  and  light  for  darkness.  What  is  evil  in  them- 
selves, they  will  call  good  ;  and  what  is  good  in 
others,  they  will  call  evil.  It  was  obviously  so,  with 
the  persecutors  of  our  Lord.  While  they  appear  to 
have  had  no  concern,  lest  the  error  should  be  found 
on  their  own  part,  his  benevolent  acts  were  viewed 
by  them  as  acts  of  wickedness,  and  deserving  of 
death,  "  For  a  good  work  we  stone  thee  not,"  was 
their  plea,  and  such  is  generally  the  plea  of  persecu- 
tors and  revilers  in  every  age  and  country.  What 
person  was  ever  persecuted  on  the  accusation  that 
he  was  a  good  man  ? 


16  LETTERS 

There  are  many  opinions  avowed  by  persons  of 
different  sects  at  the  present  day,  which  appear  to 
me  very  erroneous;  but  seldom  have  I  heard  an 
opinion  avowed,  that  I  could  not  account  for,  other- 
wise, than  by  imputing  it  to  depravity  of  heart. 
When  I  reflect  how  contrary  it  must  be  to  the  na- 
ture of  humility  and  benevolence  to  impute  a  broth- 
er's opinions  to  his  wickedness,  while  there  is  noth- 
ing else  in  his  character  to  lead  to  such  a  conclu- 
sion, I  am  often  amazed  to  hear  the  principle  avow- 
ed by  men  who  in  other  respects  appear  to  be  good 
people. 

Excepting  the  principles  which  justify  deciding 
political  disputes  by  national  hostilities,  I  know  not 
another,  which  I  think  has  done  a  tenth  part  so 
much  mischief,  as  that  which  imputes  error  on  reli- 
gious subjects  to  wickedness  of  heart.  If  the  nature 
of  a  tree  is  to  be  known  by  its  fruits,  or  the  nature 
of  a  principle  by  its  practical  results,  the  censorious 
principle  now  under  review,  may  well  be  denomina- 
ted the  BoHON  Upas  of  the  Christian  world.  It  is  a 
tree  which  has  extended  its  branches  and  its  poison- 
ous influence  over  every  Christian  country,  changing 
the  milk  of  brotherly  kindness  into  the  bitter  waters 
of  hatred  and  censure,  and  causing  contention,  cal- 
umny and  persecution  to  reign  triumphant,  where 
nothing  should  have  been  known  but  peace  and  love, 
with  their  genuine  fruits. 


,  TO    CHRISTIANS.  17 

LETTER    III. 

THE    TRUTH    AS    HATED    BY    THE    WICKED. 

My  Christian  Brethren, 

The  word  truth  frequently  occurs  in  the  Bible, 
and  also  in  controversial  writings.  It  has  been 
common  to  represent  that  the  hearts  of  sinners  are 
naturally  opposed  to  the  truth,  and  lo  account  for 
supposed  error  of  opinion  by  ascribing  it  to  hatred 
of  the  truth.  Uncharitable  Christians  of  different 
sects,  have  too  frequently  reproached  each  other  as 
enemies  to  the  truth,  and  on  this  ground  each, 
perhaps,  has  accounted  for  what  he  believed  to  be 
error  in  the  other. 

As  the  term  truth  is  used  in  the  Bible,  it  has 
several  significations.  When  used  in  relation  to 
facts,  it  is  the  opposite  to  falsehood — in  relation  to 
opinion,  it  is  the  opposite  to  error — in  relation  to 
promises,  it  is  the  opposite  to  unfaithfulness — in 
relation  to  commands,  it  is  the  opposite  to  partiality 
or  injustice — in  relation  to  moral  character,  it  is  the 
opposite  to  unrighteousness,  and  is  of  the  same 
import  as  uprightness  or  moral  rectitude.  *^  God  is 
true  ;"  and  in  the  same  sense  that  "  God  is  light :" 
and  "  God  is  love,'  it  may  be  said  "  God  is  truths 
He  is  the  source  and  fountain  of  truth  in  all  its 
forms  or  significations.  As  his  benevolence  and 
righteousness  are  expressed  in  the  law,  and  in  the 
Gospel,  these  are  called  the  truth.     Jesus  came  "  to 


16  LETTERS 

bear  witness  of  the  truth  ;  and  he  said  of  himself, 
*'  1  am  the  way,  the  truth,  and  the  life."  To  delight 
in  goodness  or  in  doing  good,  is  to  delight  in  the 
truth.  To  walk  in  obedience  to  the  law  of  love  and 
to  do  what  is  right,  is  to  walk  in  the  truth. 

There  are  truths  innumerable  and  of  various 
classes.  Every  art  or  science  has  its  system  of 
truths.  In  the  Bible  we  have  historical  and  geo- 
graphical truths,  as  well  as  those  of  a  moral  or  re- 
ligious nature.  Whatever  is  right  or  true,  is  the 
truth. 

In  what  sense  of  the  word  then,  may  it  be  said 
that  the  sinner  is  opposed  to  the  truth  ?  Would  it 
not  be  in  vain  to  try  to  convince  him  that  his  heart 
is.  opposed  to  such  truths  as  the  following  : — Eight 
and  two  are  ten — Paris  is  the  capital  of  France — 
Alfred  was  once  the  king  of  England  ?  Should  we 
succeed  better  in  attempting  to  convince  him  that 
he  hates  the  following  Scriptural  truths.  **  In  the 
beginning  God  created  the  heavens  and  the  earth" 
— Jesus  was  born  in  Bethlehem — he  was  crucified 
on  Calvary — God  raised  him  from  the  dead — God  so 
loved  the  world  that  he  sent  his  Son  that  whosoever 
believeth  in  him  should  not  perish,  but  have  ever- 
lasting life.  It  is  possible  that  an  Atheist  or  a  Deist 
might  become  convinced  that  he  had  hated  these 
truths ;  but  it  is  believed  that  no  person  who  had 
grown  up  in  the  belief  that  the  Bible  is  of  divine 
authority  could  be  convinced  that  he  ever  hated 
such  truths,  any  more  than  that  he  hated  the  truth 
which  affirmed  his  own  existence. 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  19 

When  by  truth,  is  meant  the  righteous  require- 
ments and  prohibitions  of  God,  it  may  with  propriety 
be  said  that  the  habitual  transgressor  hates  the  truth  ; 
and  it  may  not  be  in  vain  to  try  to  convince  him  of 
this  fact.  Men  are  of  course  opposed  to  whatever 
opposes  their  governing  propensity.  The  covetous 
worldling  is  opposed  to  the  command,  "  Thou  shalt 
love  tliy  neighbor  as  thyself."  The  revengeful  man 
is  opposed  to  the  precept,  "  Love  your  enemies." 
The  drunkard  is  opposed  to  the  laws  of  temperance, 
and  the  delaying  sinner  is  opposed  to  the  command 
"  Repent"—"  Cease  to  do  evil,  and  learn  to  do  well." 

The  just  requirements  of  a  benevolent  earthly 
parent,  are  the  truth,  in  the  same  sense  that  God's 
law  is  the  truth.  They  prescribe  what  is  right  for 
the  son  to  do.  The  disobedient  son,  whose  heart  is 
devoted  to  gambling  and  dissipation,  hates  his  father's 
commands  and  prohibitions;  and  in  so  doing,  he 
hates  the  truth.  But  it  does  not  hence  follow,  ihat 
he  hates  the  truths  which  affirm  the  existence  of  his 
father,  and  that  his  father  is  a  good  man,  who  is 
ready  to  forgive  him  as  soon  as  he  shall  repent. 

Preceptive  truth  is  a  rule  of  duty.  Historical 
and  doctrinal  truths,  furnish  motives  to  obedience. 
While  men  are  under  the  dominion  of  unbridled 
passions,  they  may  be  said  to  hate  the  law  of 
truth,  which  requires  of  them  self-denial,  and  the 
devotion  of  their  hearts  and  their  all  to  God.  From 
the  same  influence  they  may  disregard  the  divine 
threatenings  and  make  "  light"  of  the  offer  of  pardon 
and  salvation.     While  they  delight  in  the   ways  of 


^0  Letters 

sin,  they  love  darkness  rather  than  light,  and  will 
Hot  come  to  the  light,  lest  their  deeds  should  be  re- 
proved. Their  ardor  to  gratify  their  lusts,  disposes 
them  to  turn  a  deaf  ear  both  to  the  requirements  of 
■God,  and  the  motives  to  obedience.  But  there  are 
a  multitude  of  important  truths  contained  in  the  Bi- 
ble, to  which  the  sinner  is  no  more  opposed  than  he 
is  to  the  whole  system  of  mathematical  truth. 

In  two  senses  of  the  word  the  unbelieving  Jews 
rejected  the  truth,  during  the  Messiah's  ministry, 
and  that  of  his  apostles. 

I.  They  rejected  the  truth  by  which  Jesus  was 
proclaimed  as  the  Son  of  God,  the  promised  Mes- 
siah, and  Saviour  of  the  world. 

II.  They  rejected  the  truth  by  which  he  declared 
the  righteousness  required  by  God  for  the  remission 
of  sins. 

The  truth  in  the  first  sense  was  proclaimed  by  an 
audible  voice  from  heaven  at  his  baptism,  and  also 
at  his  transfiguration,  and  by  the  innumerable  mira- 
cles which  he  WTought  in  his  Father's  name.  The 
truth  in  the  second  sense,  was  declared  by  his 
preaching  and  his  example. 

They  rejected  him  as  the  Messiah,  because  they 
had  expected  a  temporal  Prince  to  deliver  them  from 
their  subjection  to  the  Romans,  and  not  a  spiritual 
Prince  to  deliver  them  from  their  thraldom  of  sin. 
Had  Jesus  appeared  in  the  character  which  their 
prepossessions  had  given  to  the  Messiah,  but  ^QVf  mir- 
acles would  have  been  necessary  to  induce  them  to 
flock  to  his  standard  by  thousands.     But  when  in- 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  21 

«tead  of  a  splendid  military  chieftain,  to  call  them  to 
arms  and  war,  they  perceived  a  spiritual  Teacher, 
calling  them  to  repentance,  peace,  and  a  life  of  self- 
denial,  they  despised  and  rejected  him,  notwithstand- 
ing his  thousands  of  beneficent  miracles. 

As  they  rejected  him  in  the  character  of  the  Mes- 
siah, so  they  r^^jected  the  heavenly  messages  of 
truth  and  peace  proclaimed  by  his  ministry.  Had 
they  been  of  a  candid  and  obedient  heart,  they  would 
soon  have  perceived  that  he  came  not  in  his  own 
name,  but  in  the  name  of  the  Father  that  sent  him. 
But  being  of  a  perverse  and  disobedient  temper,  they 
rejected  the  light  and  truth  of  his  precepts,  and 
hated  him  because  he  testified  of  them,  that  their 
deeds  were  evil.  Hence  the  following  passages  in 
his  preaching : — 

*'  He  that  believeth  on  him,  is  not  condemned  ; 
but  he  that  believeth  not,  is  condemned  already,  be- 
cause he  hath  not  believed  in  the  name  of  the  only 
begotten  Son  of  God.  And  this  is  the  condemnation 
that  light  has  come  into  the  world,  and  men  loved 
darkness  rather  than  light,  because  their  deeds  were 
evil.  For  every  one  that  doeth  evil,  hateth  the  light, 
neither  cometh  to  the  light,  lest  his  deeds  should  be 
reproved.  But  he  that  doeth  truth,  cometh  to  the 
light,  that  his  deeds  may  be  made  manifest  that  they 
are  wrought  in  God."  John  iii.  18 — 21.  ''My 
doctrine  is  not  mine,  but  his  that  sent  me.  If  any 
man  will  do  his  will,  he  shall  know  of  the  doctrine 
whether  it  be  of  God,  or  whether  1  speak  of  myself." 
John  vii.  16,  17.     "  If  God  were  your  Father,  ye 


22  LETTERS 

would  love  me,  for  I  proceeded  forth  and  came  from 
God  ;  neither  came  I  of  myself,  but  he  sent  me. 
Why  do  ye  not  understand  my  speech  i  even  be- 
cause ye  cannot  hear  my  words."  John  viii.  4,  2. 
The  last  clause  is  translated  by  Dr.  Campbell — "  It 
is  because  ye  cannot  bear  my  doctrine." 

It  may  be  true  that  the  ambiguity  of  some  of  the 
predictions  respecting  the  Messiah,  led  the  Jews  to 
expect  a  temporal  Prince,  but  the  obstinacy  with 
which  they  adhered  to  that  opinion  in  opposition  to 
all  the  light  resulting  from  his  miracles  and  his  min- 
istry, may  justly  be  imputed  to  the  wickedness  of 
their  hearts.  Nor  can  it  be  doubted  that  other  faith- 
ful teachers,  and  their  preaching,  have  been  rejected 
in  a  similar  manner.  Still  it  may  not  be  true,  that  all 
error  of  opinion  concerning  religious  truth  results 
from  depravity  of  heart. 


LETTER     IV. 

AN    IMPORTANT    QUESTION    ANSW^ERED. 

3Ii/  Chridian  Brethren, 

It  being  granted  that  our  Lord  imputed  the 
error  of  the  unbelieving  Jews  respecting  himself,  to 
a    disobedient    heart,    why    may    not   ministers   of 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  23 

the  Gospel  of  the  present  age,  impute  all  supposed 
errors  on  important  doctrines  to  the  same  source  ? 

This  is  a  question  which  should  interest  all  inquir- 
ers after  truth — all  wjio  wish  the  peace  and  prosper- 
ity of  Zion.  I  shall  endeavor  to  give  such  answers 
as  will  commend  themselves  to  every  impartial  mind. 

1.  God  gave  to  his  Son  the  Holy  Spirit  not  by 
measure — by  which  he  could  infallibly  distinguish 
between  truth  and  error  ;  and  by  which  he  so  knew 
what  was  in  man,  that  he  could  tell  the  motives 
by  which  they  were  governed,  and  the  reasons  which 
operated  in  the  adoption  of  their  opinions.  This 
cannot  be  said  of  the  ministers  of  the  Gospel  at  the 
present  day. 

2.  Jesus  Christ  was  ordained  of  God  to  be  the 
Judge  of  the  living  as  well  as  of  the  dead.  It  is  not 
so  with  the  ordinary  ministers  of  the  Gospel. 

3.  Ministers  of  the  Gospel  are  not  only  liable 
themselves  to  error  ;  but  they  are  greatly  divided  in 
their  opinions.  If  any  one  of  them  has  a  right  to 
impute  the  errors  of  his  brethren  to  moral  depravity, 
why  is  not  this  right  common  to  all  ?  If  not  com- 
mon to  all,  who  but  an  inspired  teacher  shall  be  able 
to  say  to  whom  the  right  belongs,  and  to  whom  it 
does  not  ]  If  all  have  the  right,  it  is  then  certain 
that  some  must  have  a  right  to  judge  unjustly  and 
injuriously.  Because  where  there  is  opposition  of 
opinions  there  must  be  error  on  one  side  or  the  other, 
if  not  on  both. 

4.  Ministers  of  the  Gospel,  as  well  as  other  men 
are  very  liable  to  be  under  the  influence  of  party 


24  LETTERS 

passions,  and  to  be  governed  by  such  influence  in 
estimating  both  the  opinions  and  the  characters  of 
those  who  dissent  from  them.  The  annals  of  past 
ages  furnish  melancholy  proof  of  this  fact — such  evi- 
dence as  might  well  make  any  considerate  man 
tremble  at  the  thought  of  assuming  such  a  power  or 
right. 

Besides,  in  civil  cases,  an  interested  person  is 
deemed  unqualified  to  act  as  a  judge  or  a  juror.  So 
also  is  the  man  who  is  known  to  be  prejudiced  against 
a  person  or  party  whose  cause  is  to  be  decided. 
How  imminent  then  must  be  the  danger,  when  after 
long  controversy  and  excitement,  a  minister  of  one 
sect  ventures  to  assume  the  office  of  a  judge  in  re- 
spect to  the  hearts  of  those  who  dissent  from  his 
creed  !  Under  such  circumstances,  what  reflecting 
man  would  dare,  unauthorized,  to  assume  such  re- 
sponsibility 1  How  little  confidence  is  to  be  placed 
in  the  censorious  opinions  mutually  expressed  of 
each  other  by  political  partizans,  in  a  time  of  great 
excitement  ?  Quite  as  little,  I  suspect,  is  to  be  pla- 
ced in  the  opinions  of  religious  partizans  under 
similar  circumstances. 

5.  There  are  many  causes  of  error,  and  many 
ways  to  account  for  it,  besides  the  wickedness  of  the 
human  heart ;  and  it  is  a  law  of  love,  and  the  nature 
of  true  love,  to  put  the  most  favorable  construction 
upon  a  brother's  conduct  which  the  circumstances 
of  the  case  will  admit.  Every  man  duly  aware  of 
his  own  liability  to  err,  must  feel  it  to  be  desirable 
Jthat  others    should  act   on    this  principle  towards 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  25 

himself.  The  ambiguity  of  language  is  a  source  of 
error,  by  which  every  man  is  liable  to  be  led  astray, 
whether  he  be  learned  or  illiterate,  good  or  bad. 
Many  ambiguous  words  and  phrases  are  used  in  the 
Bible,  and  in  some  instances  it  must  be  doubtful  per- 
haps to  every  one  in  which  of  two  or  more  senses 
these  words  or  phrases  are  used  in  particular  passa- 
ges. The  man  who  is  not  aware  of  his  own  liability 
to  mistake  the  intended  meaning  of  an  ambiguous 
word  or  phrase,  and  thus  to  form  an  erroneous  opin- 
ion, is  as  little  to  be  envied  for  his  intelligence  as 
for  his  candor. 

That  good  men  are  liable  to  mistake  when  ambig- 
uous words  are  used  by  inspired  teachers,  may  be 
evident  from  what  occurred  during  our  Lord's  min- 
istry. Several  instances  are  recorded  of  the  mistakes 
of  his  apostles,  which  arose  from  this  source.  When 
he  exhorted  them  to  beware  of  the  "  leaven  of  the 
Pharisees;"  they  supposed  it  to  be  the  "  leaven  of 
bread"  that  he  meant,  till  by  reasoning  with  them 
Christ  led  them  to  understand  that  it  was  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Pharisees  which  he  had  called  "  leaven." 
Thousands  of  similar  mistakes  result  from  such  a 
figurative  use  of  common  words.  The  apostles 
again  mistook  the  meaning  of  Christ,  when  he  said 
to  them  "  our  friend  Lazarus  sleepeth."  The  eve- 
ning before  the  crucifixion,  Christ  said  to  Judas, 
'^  What  thou  doest,  do  quickly."  Now  no  man  at 
the  table  knew  for  what  purpose  Jesus  thus  address- 
ed the  traitor ;  but  as  it  was  known  to  them  that 
Judas  kept  the  purse  of  the  company,  some  supposed 


26  LETTERS 

that  Jesus  had  directed  him  to  purchase  the  things 
that  would  be  needed  at  the  feast,  or  to  give  some- 
thing to  the  poor.  After  the  resurrection,  the  apos- 
tles again  misapprehended  the  meaning  of  their  Lord 
in  the  answer  he  gave  to  Peter's  question  relating  to 
John.  Jesus  replied  to  Peter,  by  another  question — 
'*  If  I  will  that  he  tarry  till  I  come,  what  is  that  to 
thee  ?  From  this  ambiguous  answer,  the  opinion  was 
formed  and  circulated  that  John  should  not  die. 

Now  what  should  we  have  thought  of  our  Lord's 
character,  had  he  imputed  such  mistakes  as  have 
been  mentioned,  to  wickedness  of  heart  in  his  disci- 
ples? Yet  this  would  have  been  as  proper  as  it  is 
for  Christians  at  this  day,  thus  to  account  for  their 
differences  of  opinion.  For  a  great  part  of  these  dif- 
ferences result  from  the  ambiguity  of  Scripture  lan- 
guage. 

6.  Children  of  different  sects  are  differently  taught 
as  to  the  meaning  of  particular  words  and  phrases, 
as  they  occur  in  the  Scriptures;  and  many  of  them 
are  perhaps  to  the  end  of  their  lives  incapable  of 
correcting  the  errors  thus  imbibed  in  childhood. 
Though  in  discoursing  with  the  Jews,  Christ  impu- 
ted their  rejection  of  his  testimony  to  a  disobedient 
heart ;  yet  it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  what  he  said  to 
them,  was  applicable  to  oil  the  Jews  of  that  age  who 
did  not  become  believers  in  him — nor  to  any  who 
had  not  an  opportunity  to  be  correctly  informed  of 
the  evidences  of  his  divine  mission.  Many  of  the 
people  of  Judea,  as  well  as  Jews  in  foreign  lands, 
had  probably  no  knowledge  of  Jesus,  of  his  preach- 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  27 

ing,  or  his  miracles,  but  what  they  received  from  his 
enemies.  In  regard  to  persons  thus  situated,  it  can 
hardly  be  said  that  light  had  come  into  the  world  ; 
and  it  cannot  be  supposed  that  they  were  held  ac- 
countable for  privileges  bestowed  on  others,  which 
were  denied  to  them  by  the  course  of  divine  provi- 
dence. When  children  are  brought  up  under  the 
influence  of  pious  parents,  who  happen  to  entertain 
erroneous  doctrines,  they  are  under  a  kind  of  neces- 
sity of  imbibing  erroneous  opinions.  For  a  child  to 
be  thus  situated  may  be  a  calamity,  but  not  a  crime; 
and  it  is  rather  an  evidence  of  an  obedient  than  a 
disobedient  heart,  that  he  imbibes  the  erroneous 
opinions  of  his  parents.  For  he  is  required  to  honor 
father  and  mother,  and  a  disposition  to  obey  this  com- 
mand, will  naturally  incline  him  to  listen  to  parental 
instruotion  and  to  receive  as  truth  what  his  parents 
inculcate  as  the  doctrines  of  the  Gospel.  It  is  as 
unreasonable  as  it  is  cruel  for  a  Protestant  to  impute  it 
to  wickedness  of  heart  that  the  children  of  Papists 
grow  up  strongly  attached  to  the  doctrines  of  the 
Catholic  church.  We  may  as  rationally  blame  a 
child  for  not  having  been  born  omniscient,  or  for 
possessing  the  spirit  of  filial  love  and  reverence,  as 
to  blame  him  for  receiving  as  truth  the  erroneous 
opinions  which  were  inculcated  on  him  by  his  pa- 
rents, while  it  was  impossible  for  him  to  know  that 
they  were  incorrect.  Let  any  censorious  minister 
ask  himself,  what  would  be  his  views  of  others,  who 
should  impute  it  to  wickedness  of  heart,  that  his 
children  hearken  to  his  instructions,  and  grow  up  in 


28 


LETTERS 


the  belief  of  his  religious  opinions  ?  To  whatever 
denomination  a  child  may  belong,  the  more  pious 
and  humble  he  is,  the  more  likely  he  is  to  imbibe 
the  religious  opinions  of  his  parents,  whether  they 
be  correct  or  erroneous. 

7.  The  doctrines  about  which  Christians  have  con- 
tended, have  seldom  been  strictly  the  doctrines  of 
the  Gospel  ;  they  have  more  commonly  been  the 
doctrines  of  men — of  men  who  assumed  the  right  to 
say  in  other  words  what  was  meant  by  the  inspired 
writers,  and  to  set  up  their  explanations  of  Scrip- 
ture as  unquestionable  truth.  In  some  instances, 
indeed  there  have  been  disputes  about  the  genuine- 
ness of  certain  passages,  which  have  found  a  place 
in  the  Bible.  In  other  instances  there  have  been 
disputes  in  regard  to  the  correctness  of  the  com- 
monly received  translations.  But  I  have  not  learned 
that  any  sect  of  Christians  has  been  formed  on  either 
of  these  grounds  of  dispute.  The  disputes  which 
have  divided  Christians  into  sects,  have  originated 
in  differences  of  opinion  about  the  meaning  of  par- 
ticular passages  of  Scripture,  which  were  acknowl- 
edged to  be  genuine  by  each  party, — and  to  be  true 
in  the  sense  intended  by  the  inspired  writers.  To 
express  the  supposed  sense  of  the  passages  more 
definitely,  has  been  an  object  with  those  who  have 
formed  creeds  or  confessions  of  faith.  Propositions 
which  men  have  thus  formed  have  been  set  up  as 
standards  of  faith,  and  as  tests  of  Christian  charac- 
ter ;  and  to  these  others  must  give  their  assent,  or  be 
denied  Christian  privileges.     These  propositions  of 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  29 

human  manufacture  are  what  their  advocates  de- 
nominate the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus.  Those  who 
refuse  their  assent  to  these  dogmas  are  reproached 
as  enemies  to  the  truth,  while  they  freely  admit  as 
the  truth  the  very  texts  of  Scripture,  on  which 
these  articles  are  supposed  to  be  founded.  It  seems 
to  have  been  thought  not  sufficient  for  a  man  to  be- 
lieve the  doctrines  of  the  Gospel  as  given  by  the 
wisdom  of  God,  but  he  must  assent  to  an  edition  of 
these  doctrines  as  revised  and  amended,  by  the  wis- 
dom of  self-sufficient  men.  The  "  bones  of  con- 
tention" have  not  been  the  words  of  God's  wisdom, 
but  the  words  of  man's  wisdom  :  and  these  words 
of  man's  wisdom  have  been  preferred  to  the  words 
of  God,  as  standards  of  truth  and  tests  of  character. 
1  think  I  do  not  go  too  far  in  saying  that  these  hu- 
man compositions  have  been  preferred  to  the  Bible, 
for  the  purposes  I  have  mentioned.  If  they  are  not 
PREFERRED,  why  are  they  urged,  and  substituted,  as 
if  the  Bible  were  insufficient  ?  1  am  aware  that 
those  who  adopt  this  course  profess  great  respect  for 
the  Bible,  and  are  not  commonly  backward  to  accuse 
dissenters  from  their  creed  with  disrespect  for  the 
oracles  of  God.  But  it  seems  to  me  an  extraordinary 
mode  of  evincing  a  regard  for  the  Bible,  to  substi- 
tute for  it,  as  a  rule  of  faith,  the  compositions  of 
fallible  and  uninspired  men. 

If  one  sect  of  Christians  may  adopt  this  course,  so 
may  another  ;  and  thus  it  has  been  that  different  sects 
have  adopted  the  same  self-sufficient  principle,  and 
mutually  censured,  reproached  and  persecuted  one  an- 


30  LETTERS 

Other.  Then  a  third  sect  is  formed,  which  condemns 
each  of  the  preceding  ;  then  a  fourth,  and  a  fifth,  and 
so  on  till  the  family  of  professed  disciples  of  Christ 
have  become  divided  and  subdivided  into  numerous 
parties  or  hostile  bands,  as  unlike  a  "  building  fitly 
framed  together,"  as  are  the  fragments  of  a  temple 
after  having  been  rent  asunder  and  dispersed  by  the 
violence  of  a  hurricane, — and  almost  as  far  from 
that  oneness  which  Christ  prayed  might  exist  among 
all  who  should  become  believers  in  him,  as  are  the 
different  parties  of  ths  belligerent  troops  of  a  nation 
in  a  time  of  civil  war.  What  can  be  more  adapted  to 
promote  infidelity  than  such  perpetual  hostilities 
among  those  who  profess  to  be  disciples  of  the 
Prince  of  peace,  and  to  love  one  another  as  Chiist 
has  loved  them  ! 

What  is  the  difference  between  denying  the  Gos- 
pel to  be  a  sufficient  revelation,  and  establishing  the 
creed  of  a  particular  sect  as  a  standard  of  faith  and 
a  test  of  character?  If  the  Gospel  is  not  so  clear 
and  definite  as  to  supersede  the  necessity  of  human 
creeds  as  standards  of  faith,  why  should  it  be  called 
a  revelation  from  God  ?  Suppose  I  should  form  a 
confession  of  faith,  expressive  of  my  own  views  of 
the  meaning  of  Sciipture.  This  might  be  useful 
for  giving  information  of  what  I  think  to  be  true  in 
regard  to  the  doctrines  of  the  Gospel.  If  I  stop 
here,  I  give  no  just  cause  of  offence.  But  if  I  pro- 
ceed further  and  make  my  opinions  a  test  of  charac- 
ter, and  impute  it  to  moral  depravity  that  others 
dissent    from   my    creed,    what  do  I  less   than    to 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  31 

act  the  part  of  the  '*  Man  of  sin,"  assuming  to  be 
"  as  God"  or  "  above  all  that  is  called  God" — inva- 
ding the  rights  of  my  fellow  men,  and  arrogating 
the  prerogative  of  God  in  judging  the  hearts  of  my 
brethren  ?  There  is,  I  suspect,  much  more  of  the 
"  Man  of  sin,"  in  this  business  of  creedmaking 
and  censuring  such  as  dissent,  than  has  generally 
been  imagined.  If  it  be  said  that  by  the  "  Man  of 
sin"  the  Pope  was  intended  ;  I  would  ask,  who  and 
what  is  a  Pope  but  a  man  who  assumes  the  right  of 
determining  how  his  brethren  should  understand  the 
doctrines  of  the  Gospel,  and  the  right  of  censuring 
and  persecuting  such  men  as  dare  to  question  his  in- 
fallibility ?  The  Pontiff  of  Rome  is  not  the  only  man 
who  presumes  thus  to  invade  the  rights  of  men  and 
the  rights  of  God. 

Party  creeds,  in  the  language  of  human  v»?isdom, 
have  uiiquestionably  been  adopted  in  the  belief, 
that  the  doctrines  of  the  Gospel  can  be  better  ex- 
pressed than  they  were  by  Christ  and  his  apostles — 
at  least,  expressed  in  language  less  ambiguous,  and 
more  sure  to  keep  heretical  persons  from  joining  a 
church.  It  has  been  pleaded  that  creeds  or  articles 
of  faith,  expressed  in  Scripture  language,  would 
afford  no  security  against  the  admission  of  persons 
of  very  different  opinions,  as  all  who  profess  to  re- 
gard the  Bible  as  their  rule  of  faith  will  readily 
assent  to  articles  thus  expressed.  Hence  it  has  been 
deemed  proper  to  express  articles  of  faith  in  language 
more  definite  than  the  language  of  the  Scriptures, 
that  there  may  be  more  uniformity  of  opinion  among 


32  LETTERS 

the  members  of  the  same  church,  and  that  men  of 
erroneous  opinions  may  be  excluded. 

But  do  such  articles  of  faith  insure  uniformity  of 
opinion?  Look  at  the  Church  of  England,  whose 
clergy  subscribe  "  The  Thirty  Nine  Articles." 
The  majority  of  them  are  supposed  to  be  Arminians, 
and  being  the  majority,  they  are  called  *'  the  Ortho- 
dox.'^ Another  large  and  respectable  class  of  these 
clergymen  are  Calvinisls.  Some  are  supposed  to 
be  Antinomians.  They  all  subscribe  a  creed  which 
is  in  the  strongest  language  Trinitarian  ;  yet  how 
many  of  the  clergy  of  that  church  have  been  Unita- 
rians, except  in  name  !  And  how  many  of  the  ex- 
planations of  the  doctrine  of  "  three  persons  in  one 
God,"  given  by  the  ministers  of  that  church,  have 
amounted  to  nothing  more  than  Unitarianism  under 
a  Trinitarian  cloak  or  veil !  What  better  than  this 
have  we  when  we  are  told,  that  by  the  three  persons 
in  one  God  are  meant  three  attributes,  or  three  offices, 
or  three  relations,  or  three  unknown  distinctions  ? 
Is  it  not  a  fact,  too,  that  many  of  the  clergy  of  the 
Church  of  England  subscribe  the  Thirty  Nine  Arti- 
cles, not  in  reality  as  articles  of  their  belief,  but  as 
"  Articles  of  peace  V 

In  that  Church  we  have  an  example  illustrative  of 
the  benefits  or  the  disadvantages  which  result  from 
the  establishment  of  Articles  of  faith  in  the  words 
of  man's  wisdom.  In  our  own  country,  too,  some- 
thing of  the  same  diversity  of  opinion  is  known  to 
exist  among  ministers  who  profess  an  assent  to  pop- 
ular articles  of  faith,  which  are  called  essential  doc-? 


•A. 

TO    CHRISTIANS.  33 

trines  ;  and  the  same  articles  are  also  in  our  country 
differently  explained  by  different  writers.  What 
worse  than  this  might  be  expected  to  result  should 
all  their  articles  of  faith  be  stated  in  the  very  words 
of  Christ  and  his  Apostles  ?  And  would  there  be 
no  advantage  in  having  the  articles  so  expressed  as 
to  preclude  the  strong  temptations  to  hypocrisy 
and  dissimulation  ? 


LETTER  V. 


TWO  EXAMPLES  OF  ERROR  FROM  THE    AMBIGUITY    OF 
LANGUAGE. 

My   Christian  Brethren, 

Having  mentioned  the  ambiguity  of  language 
as  a  prolific  source  of  error  and  diversity  of  opinion 
among  Christians,  I  shall  now  present  two  examples. 
When  our  Lord  instituted  the  supper  as  a  memo- 
rial of  his  death,  on  giving  the  bread  to  his  disciples 
he  said,  ''  Take,  eat,  this  is  my  body ;"  and  on 
giving  the  cup  he  said,  "  This  is  my  blood.'*'  On 
such  ground  as  this  the  Catholic  clergy  formed  the 
doctrine  of  transubstantiation.  In  other  words 
they  formed  propositions  to  be  received  as  articles 
of  faith  which  affirmed  that  the  bread  and  the  wine, 


84  LETTERS 

as  used  in  the  Lord's  Supper,  are  changed  into  the 
body  and  blood  of  Christ, — so  that  those  who  par- 
take of  the  supper,  eat  the  flesh  and  drink  the  blood 
of  the  Lord  Jesus.  This  doctrine  has  been  deemed 
by  the  Catholics  not  only  as  true,  but  so  essential 
that  those  who  deny  it  are  deemed  guilty  of  damnable 
error  or  heresy,  and  on  this  ground  thousands  of 
Protestants  have  been  subjected  to  imprisonment 
torture  and  death,  as  heretics. 

Protestants  as  well  as  Papists  admit  that  Christ 
uttered  the  words  which  have  been  quoted  ;  and  they 
believe  them  to  be  both  true  and  important  in  the 
sense  they  were  used  by  our  Lord.  There  has  been 
a  difference  of  opinion  between  Lutherans  and  other 
Protestants  as  to  the  import  of  the  words,  as  used  by 
Christ.  The  most  common  opinion  among  Protes- 
tants of  the  present  day  is  probably  this,  that  the 
words  are  to  be  understood  in  a  figurative  sense, 
meaning  that  the  bread  and  the  wine  in  the  Lord's 
Supper,  are  to  be  regarded  as  symbols  of  the  body 
and  blood  of  Christ. 

i\nother  example  may  be  the  following  : 
In  foretelling  his  death,  Jesus  said — "  I  lay  down 
my  life  for  the  sheep."  His  Apostles  represent  that 
"while  we  were  yet  sinners  Christ  died  for  us" — 
that  "  he  suffered  for  sins,  the  just  for  the  unjust" — 
that  "he  died  for  all,"  and  "tasted  death  for  every 
man."  A  large  portion  of  the  Christian  world  have 
understood  these  and  similar  passages  as  importing 
that  Christ  suffered  as  a  substitute  lor  sinners — endur- 
ed for  them  a  vicarious  punishment — the  wrath  of  God 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  35' 

— the  full  penalty  of  the  law,  or  an  equivalent  to  the 
"  punishment  due  to  us  all" — at  least  "  all  the  elect." 
The  doctrine  of  vicarious  punishment,  like  that 
of  transubstantiation,  has  been  declared  to  be  an 
essential  doctrine,  and  those  who  dissent  from  it 
have  been  denounced  as  heretics,  enemies  of  Christ, 
despisers  of  the  truth,  and  unworthy  of  the  name  of 
Christians. 

Yet  as  it  was  in  the  other  case,  those  Christians 
who  dissent  from  the  doctrine  of  vicarious  punish- 
ment, readily  admit  all  that  the  Bible  says  of  the 
sufferings  and  death  of  Christ ;  they  believe  that  he 
laid  down  his  life  for  his  sheep,  that  he  gave  his  life 
a  ransom  for  sinners,  and  "  died  for  all" — "  the  just 
for  the  unjust,  that  he  might  bring  us  to  God.''  They 
believe  too,  that  in  his  death,  his  love  and  the  love 
of  God  for  our  sinful  race,  were  really  and  wonder- 
fully displayed.  And  that  we  are  reconciled  to  God 
by  the  death  of  his  Son.  All  these  ideas  they 
believe  to  be  as  true  as  they  would  have  been  had 
Christ  suffered  a  vicarious  punishment — but  not  true 
in  the  sense  which  has  been  supposed  by  the  advo- 
cates for  that  doctrine. 

Now  let  it  be  observed  that  in  both  examples  the 
words  relied  on  are  ambiguous  ;  for  there  is  more 
than  one  sense  in  which  they  are  capable  of  being 
understood.  As  b.  portrait  or  image  is  called  by  the 
name  of  the  person  represented,  so  the  bread  and 
wine  may  be  called  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ, 
•.yhich  are  represented  by  them  ;  and  it  is  well  known 


36  Letters 

that  there  are  several  senses  in  which  one  person 
may  die  for  another,  or  for  many  others. 

Let  it  also  be  observed  that  in  the  first  example, 
Christ  did  not  say,  This  bread  is  changed  into  my 
body — nor,  This  wine  is  changed  into  my  blood 
Not  a  syllable  was  said  by  him  about  any  change  or 
transubstantiation.  This  idea  was  added  to  the 
words  of  Christ  by  the  framers  of  the  doctrine.  So 
in  the  second  example,  Christ  did  not  say  I  lay  down 
my  life  as  a  vicarious  punishment  for  my  sheep.  Nor 
did  his  Apostles  in  any  instance  say,  that  Christ 
endured  for  us  "  the  wrath  of  God,"  or  the  penalty  of 
the  divine  law  due  to  our  offences.  This  idea  was 
added  by  the  framers  of  the  doctrine  of  vicarious 
punishment,  just  as  the  idea  of  change  was  added  by 
the  framers  of  the  doctrine  of  transubstantiation.  I 
have  no  doubt  that  in  each  case  the  framers  thought 
the  idea  they  added  to  be  implied  in  the  words  of 
Scripture  ;  but  this  is  no  proof  that  it  was  implied, 
nor  that  any  man  had  a  right  to  insert  it5  as  the  word 
of  God.  It  is,  however,  by  thus  adding  to  the  words 
of  Scripture  what  men  have  supposed  to  be  implied, 
that  numerous  propositions  have  been  formed  as  es- 
sential articles  of  faith.  Nor  has  the  mischief  of 
this  creed-making  policy  stopped  here.  Each  sect, 
after  having  thus  formed  its  essential  articles,  have 
called  them  the  truth.  Hence,  with  them  to  love 
the  truth,  is  to  love  the  articles  of  their  creed,  formed 
in  the  words  of  man's  wisdom ;  and  any  one  who 
dissents  from  these  articles,  is  supposed  to  be  a  des- 
piser  of  the  truth,  an  opposer  of  the  truth,  an  enemy 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  37 

to  the  God  of  truth.  Of  course,  the  opposition  to 
these  supposed  truths,  is  imputed  to  depravity  of 
heart.  Hence  persecution  in  various  forms,  has  been 
practised  by  one  sect  of  Christians  against  another. 
What  an  awful  responsibility  does  a  fallible  unin- 
spired man  take  on  himself,  when  he  ventures  to 
substitute  his  own  opinion  of  an  ambiguous  passage 
of  Scripture  for  the  word  of  God,  and  to  make  that 
opinion  a  test  by  which  he  may  judge  the  hearts  of 
others  ! 

That  ministers  of  the  gospel  have  a  right  to  ex- 
plain the  Scriptures  according  to  their  ovtn  under- 
standing of  them,  and  to  do  what  they  can  to  make 
them  plain  to  the  understandings  of  their  hearers  or 
readers,  is  readily  admitted.  But  no  man  has  a  right 
tojequire  others  to  assent  to  his  interpretations  con- 
trary to  the  convictions  of  their  own  consciences, 
nor  to  set  up  his  own  explanations  as  of  equal  author- 
ity with  the  word  of  God.  As  it  is  my  duty  to  explain 
the  Scriptures  according  to  the  impartial  dictates  of 
my  own  understanding,  I  ought  to  know  that  it  is 
the  duty  of  my  brethren  to  explain  according  to  their 
respective  understandings,  and  not  according  to  mine. 
If  they  dissent  from  me,  I  ought  to  consider  that  I 
also  dissent  from  them  ;  and  the  same  candor  and 
forbearance  which  I  may  reasonably  desire  from  them 
towards  myself,  I  should  evince  in  my  conduct  to- 
wards them. 

To  the  honor  and  praise  of  the  Four  Evangelists, 
it  has  been  said  of  them,  that,  in  their  history  of  our 
Lord,  "  They  tell  the  world  what  he  said,  and  what 


38  LETTERS 

he  did;  but  they  invariably  leave  the  judgment  that 
ought  to  be  formed  of  both,  to  the   discernment  of 
their  readers."  *     Happy  it  would  have  been  for  the 
Christian  world  if  all  creed-makers  had  adopted  the 
wise  policy  of  the  Evangelists,  so  far  as  to  give  all 
articles  of  faith  in  the  language  of  the  inspired  wri- 
ters, or  as  nearly  so  as  possible.     Summaries  of  the 
Christian   faith  in  this  form   might  have   been  very 
useful,  and  have  been  the  means  of  preserving  union 
and  peace  among  the  disciples  of  the  common  Lord. 
Notes  and  comments  too  might  have  been  safely  added, 
asaccompanimentsof  the  articles,  had  they  been  prop- 
erly distinguished   from  the  articles,  and  only  given 
as  the  opinions  of  fallible  men,  with  proper  cautions 
to  the  reader  to  consider  them  in  no  other  light — but 
to  use  his  own  understanding,  and  all  the  means  he 
may  possess  to  ascertain  what  is   truth  and  what  is 
error.     "  Add  thou  not  to  his  words,  lest  he  reprove 
thee,  and  thou  be  found  a  liar."     Such  is  the  wise 
counsel  of  Agur.     Mr.    Poole,  in   his   Annotations 
on  this  text  says — "  As  the  word  of  God  is  pure,  do 
not  thou  corrupt  and  abuse  it  by  adding  to  it  thy  own 
or  other  men's  inventions  and  opinions,  and  deliver- 
ing or  receiving  them  in  the  name  and  as  the  words 
of  God."  Prov.  XXX.  6. 

Now  I  may  seriously  ask,  were  not  the  doctrines  of 
Transubstantiation  and  vicarious  punishment  formed 
by  adding  to  the  word  of  God  the  "  inventions  and 
opinions"  of  men  ?  Have  not  these  "  inventions 
and  opinions  been  delivered  and  received  as  the 
*  Dr.  Campbell. 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  39 

words  of  God  ?"  And  have  they  not  been  treated 
as  such  by  the  propagators  of  these  doctrines,  in 
their  denunciations  against  those  who  dissent  from 
them  ?  I  may  also  ask,  has  it  not  been  by  thus 
adding  the  opinions  of  men  to  the  word  of  God,  that 
all  the  creed-making  sects  have  formed  their  essen- 
tial articles  of  faith — all  the  articles  which  have 
caused  alienation  and  strife  among  Christians  ?  If 
such  a  mode  of  forming  articles  of  faith  may  not  be 
called  adding  to  God's  words,  I  know  not  what  de- 
serves that  name. 

If  articles  of  faith,  expressed  in  the  words  of 
Scripture,  were  accompanied  by  such  notes,  and 
comments  as  I  have  mentioned,  with  proper  cautions 
to  the  reader  to  distinguish  between  the  words  of 
Scripture  and  the  opinions  of  the  compilers,  there 
would  be  no  ground  for  the  charge  of  adding  to  the 
words  of  God.  But  when  fallible  and  uninspired  men 
venture  to  assert  their  own  opinions  as  the  doc- 
trines of  the  Gospel,  and  make  them  a  test  of  Christ- 
ian faith  or  a  Christian  character,  they  appear  to  me 
to  act  in  direct  violation  of  the  counsel  of  Agur,  and 
assume  an  authority  in  the  church  which  God  has 
never  delegated  to  any  of  the  sons  of  men.  To  make 
such  articles  of  faith  the  standard  by  which  men 
must  be  measured  for  admission  into  the  churoh,  or 
for  exclusion  from  it,  is,  in  my  opinion  perfectly 
unwarranted  by  the  Scriptures,  and  in  a  high  and 
reprehensible  sense  adding  to  the  word  of  God. 

The  counsel  of  Agur  is  enforced  by  the  admonitory 
clause  "  lest  he  reprove  thee  aiid  thou  be  found  a  liar." 


40  .  LETTERS 

**  Lest  he  reprove  thee."  Lest  God  reprove  thee 
by  the  course  of  his  providence.  There  are  various 
ways  in  which  God  may  reprove  the  imprudences  and 
the  vices  of  mankind.  A  great  portion  of  the  trou- 
bles which  come  on  imprudent  or  vicious  men  in  the 
present  life,  may  properly  be  regarded  as  reproofs  or 
chastenings  from  the  hand  of  God.  Such  evils  may 
occur  in  the  natural  course  of  providence,  and  yet  be 
of  the  nature  of  reproof.  The  alienations,  conten* 
tions  and  innumerable  difficulties  which  have  occur- 
red among  Christians,  are  the  natural  and  direct 
fruit  of  adding  to  God's  words,  in  forming  articles  of 
faith,  and  seem  to  me  of  the  nature  of  reproof  for  such 
conduct,  and  as  evidence"  of  divine  disapprobation. 

"  And  thou  be  found  a  Zmr."  I  do  not  think  that 
men  are  generally  guilty  of  intentional  falsehood 
when  they  add  to  God's  words  in  forming  articles  of 
faith  ;  and  probably  Agur  meant  no  more  by  the  word 
"  liar,"  than  one  who  ventures  to  assert  his  own 
opinions  of  the  word  of  God  as^of  equal  authority 
with  the  word  itself.  When  a  man  has  so  little 
sense  of  his  own  fallibility  as  to  do  this,  or  is  pos- 
sessed of  such  arrogance  or  self-sufficiency,  as  to  as- 
sume such  a  power,  he  exposes  himself  to  the  charge 
of  uttering  that  which  is  really  false,  although  he 
may  fancy  that  it  is  the  truth.  He  may  be  free  from 
the  charge  of  intentional  falsehood,  while  he  is  verily 
guilty  of  uttering  false  opinions,  as  the  doctrines  of 
the  Gospel.  In  this  respoct,  how  often  are  men  found 
guilty,  through  self-sufficiency  or  the  want  of  that  hu- 
mility and  caution  which  ever  become  uninspired  men ! 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  41 

Having  said  so  much  against  forming  articles  of 
faith  in  the  *'  words  of  man's  wisdom,"  I  ought  per- 
haps freely  to  confess,  that  there  was  a  time  when  I 
could  express  in  my  own  language  what  I  thought  to 
be  the  meaning  of  the  Scriptures,  as  articles  of  faith 
to  be  adopted  by  a  church  But  in  several  particu- 
lars my  own  views  afterwards  became  so  changed 
that  I  could-  not  again  have  assented  to  the  articles 
ofmyovvn  forming.  These  facts  with  further  re- 
flections and  inquiries  convinced  me,  that  there  is 
neither  safety  nor  propriety  in  the  common  mode  of 
forming  articles  of  faith ;  that  such  compositions 
operate  as  fetters  to  the  mind  in  regard  to  free  in- 
quiry after  truth,  and  as  obstructions  to  the  progress 
of  light ;  that  they  expose  the  members  of  a  church 
to  be  involved  in  contentions,  or  to  act  the  part  of 
hypocrites  or  persecutors, — and  that  the  adoption  of 
such  articles  by  a  church,  implies  a  presumption  of 
such  infallibility  on  the  part  of  the  framers  or  the  re- 
ceivers, as  is  not  warranted  by  either  Scripture,  rea- 
son, or  experience,  but  is  contradicted  by  them  all. 


LETTER     VI. 


THE  Messiah's  censures  of  the  scribes  and 

PHARISEES. 

My  Christian  Brethren^ 

Those  who  are  in  the  habit  of  uttering  censures 
against  their  dissenting  brethren,  imagine  that  their 


42 


LETTERS 


conduct  may   be  justified  by  Scripture  examples. 
These  I  shall  examine  in  this  and  subsequent  letters. 

That  the  Messiah  censured  the  Scribes  and  Phar- 
isees cannot  be  denied  ;  and  his  awful  language  re- 
specting them, as  we  have  it  recorded  in  the  23d  chap- 
ter of  Matthew,  has  been  viewed  as  sufficient  to  war- 
rant the  party  censures  of  the  present  day.  "  Wo 
unto  you  scribes  and  pharisees,  hypocrites,"  is  many 
times  repeated ;  and  to  this  language  partizans  ap- 
peal to  justify  their  own  sweeping  denunciations, 
against  suph  as  dissent  from  their  religious  opinions. 
But  is  there  not  a  great  difference  between  the  au- 
thority of  Christ  to  judge  the  hearts  of  men,  and 
the  authority  of  any  man  of  the  present  age? 

Besides,  it  seems  to  me  that  the  spirit  of  our  Lord's 
language  has  been  grossly  misapprehended.  When 
a  person  is  himself  under  the  influence  of  resentful  , 
passions,  the  language  *'  Wo  unto  you"  will  seem  to 
be  the  proper  expression  of  such  feelings.  But  let 
him  be  under  the  influence  of  benevolent  feelings,  and 
the  same  words  may  appear  to  him  with  an  entirely 
different  aspect,  and  as  the  expression  of  pitying  love 
or  commisseration,  towards  persons  whose  characters 
expose  them  to  the  displeasure  of  Heaven.  In  the  lat- 
ter sense  they  are  viewed  and  explained  by  Dr.  Camp- 
bell ;  and  in  this  sense  I  think  they  ought  to  be  regard- 
ed. When  thus  viewed,  they  imply  nothing  indignant 
or  resentful,  any  more  than  the  prayer  on  the  the  cross 
*'  Father,  forgive  them,  for  they  know  not  what  they 
do."  When  Christ's  language  is  referred  to  as  jus- 
tifying party  denunciations,  an  indignant,  resentful 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  43 

and  imprecating  spirit  is  imputed  to  him,  which  as 
I  conceive,  was  foreign  from  his  heart.  "  Alas  for 
you" — or  "  Wo  is  unto  you,"  is,  I  believe,  the  cor- 
rect interpretation  ;  not  '*  Wo  be  unto  you,"  as  has 
been  often  imagined. 

When  our  Lord  predicted  the  destruction  of  Jeru- 
salem, he  used  the  following  language  :  **  Wo  unto 
the  women  with  child,  and  to  them  that  give  suck 
in  those  days  "  The  peculiar  situation  of  these 
women  was  deprecated  as  what  would  add  to  their 
distress  in  such  a  time  of  general  calamity;  and  no  one 
can  doubt,  in  this  case,  that  the  language  of  Christ  was 
the  language  of  pity,  not  of  indignation  or  censure.  It 
is  very  true  that  Christ  imputed  blame  to  the  scribes 
and  pharisees,  and  not  to  the  women,  whose  condition 
he  deplored.  The  blame  however  imputed  to  the 
scribes  and  pharisees,  was  not  expressed  in  the  words 
translated  "  Wo  unto  you,"  but  by  the  words  that  fol- 
lowed, in  which  he  described  their  wicked  conduct. 
The  Saviour  possessed  God-like  benevolence  ;  while 
he  abhorred  sin,  he  loved  and  pitied  the  sinner.  A 
deficiency  in  this  respect  is  too  often  apparent  in 
many  who  profess  to  be  his  disciples.  Is  it  not  too 
generally  so  with  partizans  of  every  sect?  And  will 
not  this  defect  in  a  great  measure  account  for  the 
adoption  of  the  persecuting  principle,  which  imputes 
error  of  judgment,  or  supposed  error  of  opinion,  to 
wickedness  of  heart?  How  exceedingly  different 
was  the  benevolence  of  the  Saviour  from  that  affec- 
tion which  is  confined  to  a  party,  and  which  under 
a  pretext  of  love  to  the  truth,  can  calumniate  a  dis- 
senting brother  ! 


44  LETTERS 

I  have  admitted  that  Christ  censured  the  scribes 
and  pharisees  ;  but  for  what  did  he  censure  them  1 
Was  it  for  any  error  at  all  resembling  the  supposed 
errors  of  opinion  by  which  Christians  at  this  day  are 
divided  into  sects  ?  or  for  which  Christians  of  one 
sect  denounce  those  of  another  1  On  the  contrary, 
was  it  not  for  immorality  in  practice,  and  for  such 
errors  relating  to  the  law  of  God,  as  encouraged  im- 
morality? Let  anyone  impartially  examine  what 
Jesus  said  of  these  men  in  the  chapter  which  has 
been  mentioned,  and  on  other  occasions  ;  and  he 
will  find  that  so  far  as  his  censures  had  any  refer- 
ence to  error  of  opinion,  they  were  such  errors  as 
encouraged  immorality  and  crime.  By  their  ex- 
positions of  the  law  and  their  regard  to  traditions, 
the  scribes  and  pharisees  made  '*  the  word  of  God  of 
no  effect,"  and  made  their  religion  a  cloak  for  their 
covetousness.  They  "  devoured  widow's  houses/' 
while  "  for  a  pretence  they  made  long  prayers"- — 
they  "  paid  tithes  of  mint,  annise,  and  cummin," 
while  they  "  passed  over  the  weightier  matters  of 
the  law,  judgment,  mercy  and  faith,"  or  "justice, 
humanity  and  fidelity."*  They  made  ''  clean  the 
outside  of  the  cup  and  the  platter,"  while  "  within 
they  were  full  of  extortion  and  excess."  They  pro- 
fessed a  great  regard  for  the  Sabbath,  while  they 
could  spend  it  in  calumniating  the  Saviour  for  his 
beneficent  miracles  on  that  day.  Yes,  and  while 
such  was  their  own  inconsistency,  they  could  "  trust 
in  themselves  that  they  were  righteous  and  despise 
others" — even  the  Messiah  himself. 
*  Campbell's  translation. 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  45 

Such  were  the  grounds  on  which  the  Saviour  cen- 
sured the  scribes  and  pharisees.  How  very  dissim- 
ilar are  these  from  such  supposed  errors  of  opinion 
as  are  at  this  day  made  the  grounds  of  reproach  by 
the  partizans  of  different  sects  !  When  men  of  li- 
centious habits  give  such  expositions  of  divine  pre- 
cepts, as  are  adapted  to  countenance  their  immoral 
conduct,  we  have  then  reason  to  fear  that  their 
errors  of  opinion  proceed  from  depravity  of  heart. 
Such  appears  to  have  been  the  fact  with  the  scribes 
and  pharisees.  This  was  known  to  our  Lord ;  for 
he  knew  what  was  in  man.  But  no  one  of  these 
facts  afford  any  proof  that  the  differences  of  opinion 
among  Christians,  which  do  not  relate  to  moral  pre- 
cepts, are  the  fruit  of  depravity,  on  which  side  soever 
the  error  may  be  found.  Much  less,  if  possible,  do 
such  facts  prove  that  the  errors  are  on  the  part  of  the 
accused,  and  not  on  the  part  of  accusers  ;  nor  that 
the  censures  may  on  either  part  be  justified.  How 
does  it  appear  that  the  accused  sects  are  more  liable 
or  more  likely  to  be  in  error  than  their  accusers  ? 
I  know  not :  and  1  suspect  that  there  are  few  per- 
sons who  will  be  able  to  answer  the  question  in  a 
manner  satisfactory  even  to  themselves. 

It  is  worthy  of  serious  inquiry  whether  the  opin- 
ion which  leads  partizans  to  think  they  may  be  jus- 
tified in  reproaching  others  for  supposed  misinter- 
pretations of  Scripture,  is  not  in  fact  an  error  of  the 
same  nature  of  those  for  which  Christ  reproved  the 
scribes  and  pharisees — an  error  that  makes  "  the 
word  of  God  of  no  effect,"  which  forbids  censorious 


46  LETTERS 

judging,  and  speaking  evil  one  of  another.  If  any- 
thing is  immoral,  it  is  immorality  to  violate  these 
precepts. 


LETTER     VII. 

Ipaul's  censures  of  schismatic  teachers. 

My  Christian  Brethren, 

Perhaps  there  is  not  another  passage  in  the 
Bible  which  has  been  more  frequently  perverted  than 
the  following  : — *'  I  marvel  that  ye  are  so  soon  re- 
moved from  him  that  called  you  into  the  grace  of 
Christ,  unto  another  Gospel,  which  is  not  another  ; 
but  there  be  some  that  trouble  you,  and  would 
pervert  the  Gospel  of  Christ.  But  though  we  or  an 
angel  from  heaven,  preach  any  other  Gospel  unto 
you,  than  that  which  we  preached  unto  you,  let  him 
be  accursed."     Gal.  i.  6,  7,  S. 

This  language  of  Paul  to  the  Galatians  is  one  of 
the  strong  holds  to  which  censorious  Christians  of  all 
sects  resort  in  justification  of  schismatic  conduct,  or 
such  reproachful  language  as  tends  to  alienate 
Christians  from  each  other.  By  this  example  of 
Paul,  the  Catholics  justify  their  anathemas  against 
Protestants ;  and   Protestants  of  different  sects  on 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  47 

the  same  ground  justify  their  censures  of  the  Catho- 
lics and  of  one  another.  But  to  the  Pope  himself, 
and  to  every  minister  of  the  Gospel,  who  like  the 
Pope  denounces  fellow  Christians  on  account  of  dif- 
ference of  opinion,  these  questions  may  be  urged, — 
Art  thou  like  Paul,  invested  with  apostolic  authority 
and  miraculous  powers  ?  Hast  thou  like  him,  been 
inspired  to  teach  the  doctrines  of  Christ,  and  to 
distinguish  between  truth  and  error  ?  And  what 
analogy  is  there  between  the  doctrine  which  Paul 
censured,  and  any  doctrine  which  in  modern  times 
has  divided  Christians  of  our  land  ;  or  on  account 
of  which  they  have  censured  one  another  ? 

From  the  contents  of  the  epistle  to  the  Galatians, 
it  appears,  that  soon  after  they  had  received  the 
Gospel,  and  had  been  formed  into  a  church  state, 
certain  teachers  came  among  them  who  were  zeal- 
ous for  the  Mosaic  rituals,  and  who  ventured  to 
teach  these  Christians  that  circumcision  was  neces- 
sary to  salvation.  The  same  doctrine  had  been 
taught  at  Antioch,  and  had  occasioned  the  council 
which  was  held  at  Jerusalem  ;  the  records  of  whose 
proceedings  we  have  in  the  fifteenth  chapter  of  the 
Acts  of  the  Apostles.  This  council  decided  that 
circumcision  was  not  to  be  required  of  the  Gen- 
tile converts.  But  this  result  seems  not  to  have 
been  satisfactory  to  all  the  Jews  who  believed  in 
Jesus  as  the  Messiah.  Some  of  them  were  disposed 
to  make  circumcision  an  essential  article  of  the 
Christian  religion,  and  thus  taught  the  gentile  con- 
verts,   '*  except   ye  be  circumcised,  ye  cannot  he 


48  LETTERS 

saved  !  Had  these  teachers  merely  practised  cir- 
cumcision to  satisfy  their  own  consciences,  Paul 
would  probably  have  made  no  objection.  For  he 
was  himself  so  liberal  on  this  point  that  he  readily 
consented  to  the  circumcision  of  Timothy,  whose 
father  was  a  Greek,  when  he  found  this  to  be  neces- 
sary to  satisfy  the  consciences  of  others — or  necessa- 
ry to  the  usefulness  of  his  son  in  the  faith.*  But 
the  teachers  whose  conduct  was  censured  by  Paul, 
undertook  to  introduce  an  article  as  essential  to  the 
salvation  of  others,  which  the  Messiah  had  not  en- 
joined ;  and  on  this  ground  they  were  disposed  to 
make  a  division  in  the  church,  by  excluding  those  who 
dissented  from  their  creed,  and  also  reviled  the  apos- 
tle himself.  It  was  for  this  schismatic  conduct  that 
they  were  censured.  In  Paul's  view  they  preached 
another  Gospel,  or  a  pretended  Gospel,  contrary  to 
the  one  he  had  taught,  and  which  the  Galatians  had 
received — and  contrary,  too,  to  the  great  doctrine  of 
union  and  peace.  From  Paul's  writings,  it  is  very 
clear  that  his  prayer  was  the  same  as  that  of  Christ, 
that  believers  might  be  one,  and  be  preserved  from 
division.  Of  no  other  persons  did  he  speak  with 
such  severity  as  of  schismatic  teachers.  The  lan- 
guage quoted  at  the  head  of  this  letter,  is  awfully 
severe  ;  and  in  another  part  of  the  same  epistle,  he 
said  to  the  Galatians,  "  I  would  that  they  were  even 
cut  off  who  trouble  you." 

Paul  also  exhorted  the  Christians  at  Rome,  in  the 
following  manner  : — "  Mark  them  who  cause  divis-* 
*  Acts  xvi,l. 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  49 

ions  and  offences,  contrary  to  the  doctrine  ye  have 
received,  and  avoid  them."  To  Titus  he  thus  wrote  : 
"  A  man  that  is  an  heretic,  after  the  first  and  second 
admonition,  reject."  Titus  iii,  10.  In  Dr.  Camp- 
bell's opinion,  instead  of*'  a  man  that  is  an  heretio" 
the  Greek  words  should  have  been  translated,  '*  a 
factious  man" — meaning  one  who  was  disposed  to 
promote  contentions  and  divisions  in  the  church. 
It  was  against  such  men  that  Paul's  thunders  were 
uttered — against  men  who  dared  to  make  doctrines 
essential  to  salvation  which  had  not  been  authorized 
as  such  by  the  Head  of  the  church.  I  may  here 
quote  the  last  paragraph  of  Dr.  Campbell's  Disserta- 
tion on  Heresy,  as  both  pertinent  and  important : — 

"  I  shall  conclude  with  adding  to  the  observations 
on  schism  and  heresy,  that  how  much  soever  of  a 
schismatic  or  heretical  spirit  in  the  apostolic  sense 
of  the  terms,  may  have  contributed  to  the  formation 
of  the  different  sects  into  which  the  Christian  world 
is  at  present  divided,  no  person,  who  in  the  spirit  of 
candor  and  charity  adheres  to  that  which  to  the  best 
of  his  judgment  is  right,  though  in  his  opinion  he 
should  be  mistaken,  is  in  the  Scripture  sense  either 
schismatic  or  heretic.  And  that  he  on  the  contrary, 
whatever  sect  he  belong  to,  is  more  entitled  to  these 
odious  appellations,  who  is  the  most  apt  to  throw  the 
imputation  on  others.  Both  terms,  for  they  only 
denote  different  degrees  of  the  same  bad  quality,  al- 
ways indicate  a  disposition  and  practice  unfriendly 
to  peace,  harmony,  and  love." 

In  the  same  Dissertation,  having  shown  how  thing 


50  LETTERS 

had  been  managed  to  make  the  term  "  heresy"  ap- 
plicable to  error  of  judgment,  Dr.  Campbell  remark- 
ed.— "  Thus  mere  mistake  is  made  at  length  to  in- 
cur the  reproach  originally  levelled  against  an  as- 
suming and  factious  temper,  which  would  sacrifice 
the  dearest  interests  of  society  to  its  own  ambition." 
Two  striking  facts  relating  to  the  teachers  who 
were  censured  by  Paul,  should  not  be  overlooked 
nor  forgotten. 

I.  These  teachers  were  men  who  dared  to  teach 
a  doctrine  as  essential  to  salvation,  and  as  a  test  of 
Christian  character,  which  no  inspired  teacher  had 
ever  exhibited  in  that  light. 

II.  These  teachers  were,  I  think,  of  the  first  class 
of  professed  Christian  teachers,  who  ventured  to  set 
up  their  own  interpretations  of  Scripture  as  articles 
of  faith  essential  to  salvation,  and  as  a  test  of  Christ- 
ian character. 

It  is  very  certain  that  Paul's  censures  were  level- 
led against  men  who  assumed  this  schismatic  and 
creed-making  power.  Is  it  not  then  remarkable 
that,  in  modern  times,  those  who  have  imitated  the 
schismatic  teachers,  have  also  justified  their  own- 
denouncing  spirit  by  Paul's  censure  of  the  very- 
principle  and  practice  which  they  have  adopted? 
Such  inconsistency  is  not  confined  to  any  one  sect : 
it  has  been  common  to  individuals  of  various  de- 
nominations. 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  51 


LETTER    VIII. 

Paul's  account  of  the  natural  man. 

My  Christian  Brethren, 

The  following  is  the  language  of  the  Apostle 
Paul  :— 

*'  For  the  natural  man  receiveth  not  the  things  of 
the  Spirit  of  God  ;  for  they  are  foolishness  unto  him  \ 
neither  can  he  know  them,  because  they  are  spiritu- 
ally discerned."   1  Cor.  ii.  14. 

Dr.  Macknight  translates  the  verse  as  follows  : — 

"  Now  an  animal  man  receiveth  not  the  things  of 
the  spirit  of  God,  for  they  are  foolishness  unto  him  ; 
neither  can  he  know  them,  because  they  are  spiritu- 
ally examined." 

This  text  is  often  quoted  to  account  for  the  differ- 
ence of  opinion,  which  occurs  between  persons  of 
different  sects,  by  imputing  the  opinion  of  one  of  the 
parties  to  moral  depravity,  or  an  unconverted  state. 
1  shall  therefore  exhibit  what  I  believe  to  be  the 
meaning  of  the  text,  and  then  inquire  respecting  the 
propriety  of  the  common  mode  of  applying  it.  "  The 
natural  man,"  or  *'  animal  man,"  I  suppose  to  be 
one  who  is  governed  by  animal  or  fleshly  appetites, 
lusts  or  passions,  and  who  seeks  the  gratification  of 
these  as  his  highest  good,  and  in  this  way  becomes 
blind  to  the  value  and  importance  of  spiritual  things. 

By  *'  the  things  of  the  Spirit  of  God,"  I  understand 
the  doctrines  and  precepts  of  God,  revealed  by  the 


52  LETTERS 

Holy  Spirit.  These  things  are  not  received  by  the 
natural  man.  His  heart  is  so  set  on  other  objects, 
the  gratification  of  his  animal  desires,  that  he  has  no 
cordial  relish  for  divine  truths.  His  understanding 
and  conscience  may  acknowledge  their  importance, 
but  his  heart  says — "  Go  away  for  this  time,  and 
when  I  have  a  more  convenient  season,  I  will*'  attend 
to  them.  On  such  ground  the  things  of  the  spirit 
are  regarded  as  foolishness,  or  of  little  value  com- 
pared with  sensual  gratifications. 

*'  Neither  can  he  know  them."  It  cannot,  I 
think,  have  been  the  intention  of  the  Apostle  to  re- 
present the  natural  man  as  an  excusable  idiot,  desti- 
tute alike  of  a  good  heart,  of  reason,  understanding 
and  common  sense,  and  thus  incapable  of  knowing  his 
duty,  or  the  meaning  of  words.  In  such  a  case  he 
could  not  be  regarded  as  an  accountable  or  moral  be- 
ing. To  "  knoio''  often  means  the  same  as  to  approve^ 
acknoioledge  or  cnjoij^  and  has  respect  to  the  heart, 
rather  than  to  the  understanding.  In  such  a  sense 
of  the  word  it  is  very  obvious  that  a  man  governed 
by  fleshly  lusts,  cannot  know,  approve,  or  enjoy  the 
things  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  while  in  such  a  state. 
The  reason  assigned  by  the  Apostle  is,  "  because 
they  are  spiritually  discerned,^'  or  "  examinedJ^  Dr. 
Macknight  paraphrases  the  words  as  follows — ''  Nei-* 
ther  can  he  know  them  because  they  are  spiritually 
examined — examined  by  the  light  which  revelation, 
not  reason,  affords."  This  may  possibly  be  the 
meaning  ,  but  to  me  it  appears  quite  as  probable  that 
by  the  last  clause  Paul  meant  to  teach  that  cordially 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  53 

to  know,  approve,  or  enjoy  the  precepts  and  truths 
of  religion,  we  must  have  a  spiritual  taste  or  relish 
adapted  to  spiritual  objects — in  other  words  a  dispo- 
sition to  love  what  is  true  and  excellent.  A  worldly 
minded  man  may  understand  the  precept,  •'  set  not 
your  affections  on  things  below."  A  revengeful  man 
may  understand  the  exhortation — ''  avenge  not  your- 
selves." The  reviler  may  understand  the  precept, 
"  Speak  not  evil  one  of  another."  In  each  case,  while 
the  mind  understands,  the  heart  may  be  opposed  to 
obedience,  so  that  in  the  apostles  sense  of  the  words, 
he  cannot  "  know"  the  things  required  or  forbidden. 
He  has  no  relish  for  such  instructions.  He  cannot 
say,  *'  How  sweet  are  thy  words  to  my  taste  !" 

Besides,  a  perverse  taste  or  a  disposition  to  indulge 
the  fleshly  lusts  may  be  so  strong — and  probably  of- 
ten is  so  strong,  as  to  prevent  that  attention  to  the 
precepts  and  truths  of  the  gospel,  which  is  really 
necessary  to  a  correct  discerning  of  their  true  im- 
port. The  influence  of  party  prejudices  and  pas- 
sions, may  often  so  bewilder  the  understanding  as  to 
occasion  a  false  meaning  of  a  divine  precept  to  be 
preferred  to  the  true  meaning.  Dr.  Campbell, 
if  I  rightly  remember,  has  given  a  striking  in- 
stance of  this,  in  an  address  to  the  people  of  Scot- 
land. He  informs  us  that  when  it  was  the  fashion 
to  murder  men  for  their  supposed  heretical  opinions, 
the  command  of  Christ,  ''  Love  your  enemies,"  was 
said  by  the  clergy  not  to  mean,  "  enemies  to  our 
faith,"  but  "personal  enemies."  Hence  they  infer- 
red   that  destroying   dissenters   for   their    opinions 


54  ^  LETTERS 

was  not  forbidden  by  this  divine  precept.  In  this 
place  1  may  ask,  does  it  not  appear  from  the  conduct 
of  many,  that  the  commands,  "  Judge  not  that  ye 
be  not  judged,"  and"  Speak  not  evil  one  of  another," 
are  so  interpreted  as  not  to  forbid  the  most  censorious 
judging  and  reviling  of  those  who  dissent  from  their 
opinions? 

I  may  now  inquire  respecting  the  propriety  of  quo- 
ting Paul's  language  respecting  the  natural  man,  to 
account  for  the  differences  of  opinion  between  per- 
sons of  different  sects.     I  may  remark, 

1.  That  the  greater  part  of  the  disputes  among 
Christians  result  from  the  ambiguity  of  words  and 
phrases,  while  each  admits  the  text  to  be  true  in  the 
sense  which  he  supposes  was  intended  by  the  inspired 
writer. 

2.  If  the  words  of  Paul  may  properly  be  applied 
by  either  party,  the  ground  is  common,  and  the  other 
party  may  retort  the  insinuation. 

A  case  may  now  be  stated  to  test  the  principle, 
or  the  propriety  of  such  a  proceeding. 

Two  persons  are  disputing  on  the  words  of  Christ, 
"  I  lay  down  my  life  for  the  sheep."  One  supposes 
the  words  to  mean  that  he  would  suffer  a  vicarious 
punishment  for  mankind.  The  other  believes  that 
he  died  for  us,  but  not  in  that  sense  of  the  words,  yet 
in  a  sense  which  he  thinks  far  more  to  the  honor  of 
God.  These  men  happen  to  be  of  different  charac- 
ters, as  well  as  of  different  opinions.  One  of  them 
is  meek  and  humble ;  the  other  self-sufficient — hQ 
trusts  in  himself  that  he  is  righteous  and  despises 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  55 

Others.  Now  which  of  these  men  will  be  the  more 
likely  to  account  for  the  difference  of  opinion  by  in- 
sinuating that  the  other  is  a  natural  man  ?  In  this 
case  no  candid  and  intelligent  person  can  hesitate  for 
a  moment.  On  which  side  soever  the  self-sufficient 
person  may  be,  as  to  the  meaning  of  the  text,  he  will 
be  the  one  to  reproach  his  brother  as  a  '*  natural 
man."  Candor,  however,  requires  me  to  admit,  that 
there  may  have  been  instances  in  which  good  men  in 
other  respects  have  been  so  bewildered  by  custom, 
theory,  or  party  feelings,  as  to  adopt  such  an  unchris- 
tian mode  of  proceeding.  But  I  believe  it  to  be  a 
truth,  that  such  a  course  is  much  more  frequently 
resorted  to  by  self-righteous  hypocrites,  than  by  men 
of  truly  Christian  feelings;  and  that  it  behooves  those 
who  are  in  the  habit  of  thus  accounting  for  a  dissent 
from  their  opinions,  seriously  to  inquire  how  their 
conduct  can  be  reconciled  with  gospel  love  and  hu- 
mility, and  whether  they  are  not  in  fact,  in  that  de- 
plorable state  which  they  are  so  forward  to  impute  to 
others. 

Should  any  still  imagine  that  it  was  the  intention 
of  Paul  to  represent  every  unconverted  man  as  nat- 
urally incapable  of  knowing  the  true  meaning  of 
gospel  precepts  and  doctrines,  and  that  this  is  the 
reason  why  he  misinterprets  them ;  I  may  ask,  on 
what  ground  can  he  be  justly  condemned  for  not  receiv- 
ing and  obeying  the  truth  'I  What  better  excuse  can 
any  man  possess,  for  not  doing  the  will  of  God  than 
this,  that  he  is  naturally  incapable  of  understanding 
the  meaning  of  divine  precepts  and  prohibitions  ? 


56  LETTERS 

If  there  be  any  blame  in  such  a  case,  on  whom  does 
it  fall  ?  on  the  creature,  or  his  Creator  1 

Besides,  if  the  natural  man  has  no  perception  of 
the  truth,  how  can  he  be  said  to  hate  the  truth  1  Can 
he  hate  that  which  he  does  not  perceive  1  Should  it 
be  said  that  it  is  not  the  tt^ue  meaning  of  Scripture 
that  he  hates,  but  a  false  meaning  which  he  gives  to 
the  words  ;  what  is  this  but  saying  in  other  words 
that  it  is  falsehood,  and  not  truth,  that  the  sinner 
hates  1 

Where  there  is  no  law  there  is  no  transgression, 
and  surely  there  is  no  law  to  him  who  has  not  natural 
understanding  to  perceive  what  a  law  forbids  or  re- 
quires. The  following  are  divine  precepts — ''  Thou 
shalt  not  kill;  Thou  shalt  not  commit  adultery :  Thou 
shalt  not  steal."  These  are  among  "  the  things  of 
the  spirit  of  God."  But  if  the  natuial  man  perceives 
not  their  meaning,  why  should  he  be  punished  for 
apparent  transgression  1 

Some  perhaps  will  plead  that  the  words  of  Paul 
do  not  extend  to  such  plain  precepts  and  prohibitions, 
but  are  to  be  limited  to  the  doctrines  of  the  gospel. 
But  how  is  this  known  ?  The  precepts  and  prohibi- 
tions of  God  are  surely  the  best  tests  of  the  moral 
character,  and  they  are  as  properly  "  the  things  of  the 
spirit,"  as  the  doctrines  revealed.  Besides,  no  man 
is  blameable  for  not  believing  a  doctrine  which  he 
does  not  and  cannot  understand,  any  more  than  for 
not  obeying  a  precept  which  he  never  saw  nor  heard. 

If  the  "things  of  the  spirit  of  God,"  do  not  in- 
clude all  that  is  revealed  by  the  spirit,  who  shall  draw 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  57 

the  line  or  set  the  limits  between  the  things  meant, 
and  the  things  not  meant?  I  may  further  observe, 
that  the  most  important  doctrines  of  the  gospel  are  as 
plain  and  easy  to  be  understood  as  the  precepts  and 
prohibitions.  "  Unto  us  there  is  but  one  God,  the 
Father,"  is  as  plain  as  the  first  and  great  cominand- 
ment :  "  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God,"  &c. 
"  Jesus  is  the  Messiah,  the  Son  of  the  living  God," 
is  as  plain  as  the  precept,  "  All  things  whatsoever 
ye  would  that  men  should  do  unto  you,  do  ye  even 
the  same  to  them."  Now  what  is  there  in  either  of 
these  doctrines  or  precepts  which  is  not  intelligible 
to  an  unconverted  man,  and  as  intelligible  to  him  as 
to  the  converted,  so  far  as  mere  intellect  is  concerned 
in  understanding  them  ?  And  are  not  these  doc- 
trines and  precepts  in  fact  understood  by  thousands 
of  wicked  men,  as  they  are  understood  by  good  men  ? 
The  feelings  and  relish  of  the  heart  may  be  very  dif- 
ferent in  the  two  classes  of  people.  To  the  one  the 
doctrines  and  precepts  may  be  sources  of  deliglrt, 
while  the  other  regards  them  with  indifference,  and 
treats  them  with  disrespect.  If  I  understand  the 
Scriptures,  the  defect  of  the  sinner  consists  not  in 
the  want  of  natural  understanding  to  "  hioia  his 
master's  will,"  but  in  the  want  of  an  obedient  tem- 
per of  heart. 

It  will  perhaps  be  pleaded  by  some  that  Scripture 
propositions  have  an  internal  sense,  different  from  the 
natural  meaning  of  the  words,  and  that  this  is  what 
the  natural  man  cannot  discern.  There  are  undoubt- 
edly many  passages  of  Scripture  which  have  a  mean* 


58  LETTERS 

ing  different  from  the  common  acceptation  of  the 
words.     Our  Lord  once  said,  "  Destroy  this  temple, 
and  in  three  days  I  will  raise  it  up."     The  Jews  who 
heard  him  supposed  him  to  mean  their  splendid  house 
for  worship,  which  they  said  had  been  forty-six  years 
in  building.     "  Howbeit,"  says  the  Evangelist,  "  he 
spake  of  the  temple  of  his   body."      Now  what  is 
there  in  this  internal   sense,  when  thus  explained, 
that  is  not  easy  to  be  understood  by  any  unconverted 
man  of  common  sense  ?     All  the  parables  of  Christ 
have  a  meaning  distinct  from  the  literal  sense  of  the 
words.     This  may  be  called  the  internal  sense,  but 
when  this  sense  is  explained,  it  may  be  as  intelligi- 
ble to  a  wicked  man  as  to  a  good  man.     In  explain- 
ing the  parable  of  the   sower,   Christ  said,  ^'  The 
seed  is  the  word."     Now  this  is  just  as  plain  to  an 
unconverted  man  as  if  he  had  said,    "  The  seed  is 
wheat."     When   Jesus   uttered   the    parable  of  the 
vineyard,  "  the  chief  priests  and  the  scribes  the  same 
hour  sought  to  lay  hands  on  him."     Why  so  ?     Not 
because  they  could  not  understand  the  meaning,  but 
because  "  they  jjerccivcd  that   he   had   spoken   the 
parable  against  them."     Now  this  parable  was  one  of 
"the  things   of  the   spirit   of  God,"  and   yet  these 
wicked   Jews    "perceived"    the   meaning,    without 
waiting  for  an  explanation.      Those  who  were  "  cut 
to  the  heart"  by  the  dying  speech  of  Stephen,  seem 
clearly  to  have   understood   what  he  spoke  against 
them,  though  they  were  so  wicked  that  they  stoned 
him  to  death  for  his  faithful  reproofs  and  admoni- 
tions. 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  59 

As  further  proof  that  Paul's  meaning  lias  been 
misapprehended,  I  may  remark,  that  in  the  days  of 
Ezekiel,  God  appealed  to  the  reason  and  conscience 
of  a  wicked  people  to  decide  on  the  equity  of  his 
conduct  towards  them.  "  Are  not  my  ways  equal  ? 
Are  not  your  ways  unequal  ?"  But  if  the  sinner  is 
so  deficient  in  intellect,  that  he  cannot  understand 
the  meaning  of  God's  words,  of  what  use  could  be 
such  an  appeal  ? 

I  may  also  remark,  that  the  duty  of  every  man  is 
limited  by  the  extent  of  his  understanding.  To  love 
the  Lord  vvith  all  the  understanding,  is  all  that  is  re- 
quired of  any  man,  whether  that  understanding  be 
great  or  small.  Of  course,  if  the  natural  man  is 
so  deficient  in  intellect  that  he  cannot  understand 
any  of  God's  precepts,  he  is  under  no  obligation  to 
obey  them. 

In  both  the  Old  Testament  and  the  New,  the  con- 
version of  sinners  is  represented  as  the  effect  of 
divine  truth  on  their  minds.  "  The  law  of  the  Lord 
is  perfect,  converting  the  soul.  The  testimony  of  the 
Lord  is  sure,  making  wise  the  simple."  Psalm  xix.  7. 
"Being  born  again  not  of  corruptible  seed,  but  of 
incorruptible,  by  the  word  of  God  which  liveth  and 
abideth  forever."  I  Pet.  i.  23.  Now  if  the  uncon- 
verted, as  such,  are  incapable  of  perceiving  the  true 
meaning  of  Scripture  language,  and  consequently 
misunderstand  it ;  then  it  must  be  by  a  false  mean- 
ing of  the  word  that  they  are  converted.  Of  course, 
their  conversion  must  be  the  effect  of  falsehood,  and 
not  of  truth.     For  they  are  in  an  unconverted  state 


60  LETTERS 

till  the  change  occurs  ;  and  it  is  by  such  views  of  the 
word  as  they  have  in  an  unconverted  state  that  they 
are  regenerated,  or  that  the  work  of  regeneration  is 
commenced. 

If  men  come  into  tlie  world  with  a  nature  which 
renders  them  incapable  of  understanding  the  mean- 
ing of  divine  precepts,  they  are  no  more  blameable 
for  not  perceiving  their  meaning,  than  is  the  man  who 
was  born  blind,  for  not  being  able  to  distinguish  the 
colors  of  the  rainbow.  Besides,  when  the  precepts 
of  a  parent  are  conformable  to  truth,  or  to  the  pre- 
cepts of  God,  an  unconverted  or  disobedient  child  is 
just  as  liable  to  misconceive  the  meaning  of  a  parental 
precept,  as  a  precept  of  the  gospel.  If  the  child  is 
naturally  incapable  of  understanding  a  precept,  why 
does  the  parent  give  it?  When  a  reasonable  parent 
perceives  that  a  child  has  misunderstood  his  precept 
through  a  defect  of  intellect,  or  ignorance  of  the 
meaning  of  words,  he  of  course  excuses  the  child  : 
so  we  may  presume  it  is  with  our  heavenly  Father. 


LETTER  IX. 


THE    INJUNCTIONS    AND    EXAMPLE    OF    CHRIST. 

My  Christian   Brethren, 

Among  the  numerous  injunctions  of  the   Sa- 
viour there  is  perhaps  not  one  which  has  been  treat- 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  ^  61 

ed  with  less  respect  or  more  frequently  violated 
than  the  following  : 

*'  Judge  not,  that  ye  be  not  judged.  For  with 
what  judgment  ye  judge,  ye  shall  be  judged;  and 
with  what  measure  ye  mete  it  shall  be  measured  to 
you  again."     Matt.  vii.  I,  2. 

Luke  has  expressed  the  injunction,  differently  : 

*'  Judge  not  and  ye  shall  not  be  judged.  Con- 
demn not,  and  ye  shall  not  be  condemned."  Luke 
vi.37. 

How  very  little  are  these  injunctions  regarded  by 
different  sects  of  Christians  in  their  treatment  of 
one  another  !  It  will  be  pleaded  that  no  one  can 
suppose  that  Christ  meant  to  prohibit  ail  kinds  and 
instances  of  judging.  He  could  not  mean  to  pro- 
hibit judicial  decisions  in  courts  of  justice,  and 
probably  nothing  was  prohibited  by  these  injunc- 
tions but  what  may  properly  be  called  rash  and  cen- 
sorious judging  or  condemning  one  another.  Be  it 
even  so.  What  then  is  rash  and  censorious  judging  t 
If  I  judge  and  condemn  my  brother  as  a  wicked 
man  merely  because  he  dissents  from  my  opinion 
respecting  some  important  texts  which  we  both 
admit  to  be  genuine  Scripture,  am  I  not  chargeable 
with  rash  and  censorious  judging  ?  Or  if  I  say  that 
it  is  owing  to  the  wickedness  of  his  heart  that  he 
dissents  from  me,  is  not  this  rash  and  censorious  ? 
How  often  has  the  censorious  accuser  been  the  one 
in  error  ?  Was  not  Jesus  in  the  right,  as  to  his 
opinion  of  what  it  was  lawful  to  do  on  the  Sabbath  1 
Yet  on  account  of  his  healing  on  that  day  the  Phaf- 


62  LETTERS 

isees  ventured  to  say  "  We  know  that  this  man  is  a 
sinner."  Why  then  may  I  not  be  liable  to  a  similar 
error  when  I  thus  judge  my  dissenting  brother?  If 
I  am  not  inspired,  how  do  I  know  that  the  error  is 
not  on  my  part  1  Or  that  my  brother  is  less  honest 
than  I  am  in  his  inquiries  after  truth  ? 

The  reason  given  by  Christ  why  we  should  for- 
bear judging  is  deserving  of  notice.  "  For  with 
what  judgment  ye  judge,  ye  shall  be  judged  ;  and 
with  what  measure  ye  mete  it  shall  be  measured  to 
you  again."  This  I  consider  as  similar  to  the  ad- 
monition given  to  Peter,  "  For  he  that  taketh  the 
sword  shall  perish  by  the  sword."  It  was  not,  I 
conceive,  the  intention  of  our  Saviour  to  be  under- 
stood in  either  case,  that  the  wrong  done  would  in 
every  instance  be  retaliated  ;  nor  that  those  who 
should  retaliate  would  do  right;  but  to  forewarn 
his  disciples  of  what  would  be  the  natural  conse- 
quence of  such  rash  and  injurious  measures.  As  a 
motive  to  forbear  such  conduct,  he  would  have  his 
disciples  keep  in  view  the  common  retributions  of 
providence,  even  in  the  present  state.  Now  what 
is  more  common  than  for  censorious  persons  to  be 
censured?  Or  for  warriors,  duellists  and  assassins, 
to  perish  by  the  sword,  or  suffer  a  violent  death  ? 

Another  precept  of  Christ  is  this — "  All  things 
whatsoever  ye  would  that  men  should  do  to  you,  do 
ye  even  so  to  them."  This  precept  is  as  applica- 
ble to  judging  one  another  as  to  any  part  of  human 
conduct.     But  where  is  the  Christian  who  "  would" 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  63 

that  his  brother  should  impute  supposed  errors  of 
opinion  to  the  wickedness  of  his  heart  ?  If  I  would 
that  others  should  forbear  thus  to  judge  me,  then  of 
course  I  should  forbear  thus  to  judge  them.  This 
is  called  the  Golden  B.ule  on  account  of  its  excel- 
lence. But  alas,  how  often  is  it  treated  by  professed 
Christians  as  of  no  worth  at  all ! 

I  have  still  another  precept  of  Christ  to  exhibit ; 
but  I  shall  first  present  his  example  ;  because  the 
other  precept  makes  his  example  the  rule  of  our 
conduct. 

The  dispute  hi/  the  7ua}j, 

On  a  certain  occasion,  Jesus  thus  interrogated 
his  disciples,  "  What  was  it  that  ye  disputed  by  the 
way  ?  But  they  held  their  peace ;  for  by  the  way 
they  had  disputed  among  themselves,  who  should 
be  the  greatest."  Mark  ix.  33 — 4.  The  circum- 
stances of  this  case  are  remarkable.  So  also  was 
our  Lord's  manner  of  treating  his  apostles  on  that 
occasion,  while  they  were  in  gross  errors  of  opinion. 
Though  they  had  been  for  a  considerable  time  in  his 
family,  and  under  his  tuition,  daily  hearing  his  dis- 
courses and  witnessing  his  miracles,  they  still  re- 
tained the  errors  of  education  respecting  the  object 
of  his  mission  and  the  nature  of  his  kingdom. 
From  various  facts  it  is  obvious  that  they  supposed 
the  Messiah  was  to  be  a  temporal  prince,  that  his 
kingdom  v/as  to  be  of  this  world,  that  he  would 
reign  on  the  throne  of  David,  and  deliver  the  Jews 
from  their   subjection  to  the   Romans.     As  Christ 


64  LETTERS 

had  selected  the  twelve  for  his  special  associates, 
they  naturally  supposed  that  they  should  be  his  prin- 
cipal ministers,  when  he  should  assume  the  regal 
power.  The  dispute  by  the  way  appears  to  have 
been  on  this  question,  Who  of  them  should  be  the 
first  minister  of  state.  It  seems  that  more  than  one 
of  them  was  ambitious  for  this  dignity.  On  another 
occasion  James  and  John  appear  to  have  solicited 
the  two  highest  offices,  one  on  his  right  hand,  the 
other  on  his  left ;  and  their  mother  is  represented  as 
having  urged  the  same  request  in  their  behalf 
What  would  now  be  thought  of  ministers  of  the 
Gospel  who  should  evince  such  ignorance  and  error 
respecting  the  purpose  of  the  Messiah's  mission, 
and  the  nature  of  his  kingdom  ! 

How  then  did  Christ  treat  these  erring  apostles? 
Did  he  denounce  them  as  his  enemies?  Did  he 
impute  their  error  of  opinion  to  the  depravity  of  their 
hearts?  Did  he  show  towards  them  any  bitterness 
or  alienation  ?  Not  any  thing  of  this  kind  is  to  be 
found  on  record.  When  he  saw  them  struck  dumb 
by  his  questions, — "  ¥/hat  is  it  that  ye  disputed  by 
the  way  V'  "  He  called  a  little  child  and  set  him  in 
the  midst  of  them,"  as  an  emblem  of  that  humility 
which  became  them  as  his  disciples,  and  said  to 
them  "Except  ye  be  converted  and  become  as  little 
children,  ye  shall  not  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God." 
Matt,  xviii.  2.  This  was,  indeed,  a  reproof,  not  for 
their  errors  of  opinion,  but  for  their  ambition  and 
contention.  In  further  discoursing  with  them,  he 
let  them  know  that   he  that   would   be  great  in  his 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  65 

kingdom,  must  be  like  his  Lord,  of  a  meek  and 
humble  temper,  ready  to  be  "  servant  of  all"  in  the 
work  of  doing  good.  It  is,  however,  a  remarkable 
fact,  that  the  apostles  retained  their  error  in  regard 
to  the  object  of  his  mission  and  the  nature  of  his 
kingdom,  till  the  very  moment  of  his  ascension.  For 
it  appears  that  the  last  question  they  proposed  to 
him  implied  that  error. — "  Wilt  thou  at  this  time 
restore  again  the  kingdom  unto  Israel?"-  In  reply 
he  said  to  them,  "  It  is  not  f  )r  you  to  know  the 
times  and  the  seasons  which  the  Father  hath  put  in 
his  own  power.  But  ye  shall  receive  power  after  that 
the  Holy  Ghost  is  come  upon  you,  and  ye  shall  be 
witnesses  unto  me  in  Jerusalem,  and  in  Judea,  and 
in  Samaria,  and  unto  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth. 
And  when  he  had  spoken  these  things,  while  they 
beheld,  he  was  taken  up  and  a  cloud  received  him 
out  of  their  sight."     Acts  i.  6,  7,  8. 

To  me  it  is  probable  that  the  apostles  had  suppos- 
ed the  mission  of  the  Messiah  to  be  for  a  two  fold  pur- 
pose :  the  religious  reformation  of  the  Jews,  and  their 
political  redemption  from  the  Roman  yoke.  But 
it  is  pretty  evident  that  the  latter  purpose  was  re- 
garded by  them  as  the  main  object;  and  that  they 
possessed  no  clear  views  of  Ithe  nature  of  his  king- 
dom till  they  were  miraculously  endued  on  the  day 
of  Pentecost.  Yet  Christ  bore  with  them,  continu- 
ed them  in  his  service,  instructed  them  as  they  were 
able  to  receive,  and  finally  employed  them  as  his 
apostles  of  salvation.  He  not  only  assured  them  of 
his  own   love,  but  of  the  love  of  the  Father,  on  ac- 


66  LETTERS 

•count  of  their  love  to  liim,  and  their  belief  that  he 
**  proceeded  forth  and  came  from  God."  This  was 
done  in  the  last  interview  prior  to  his  death ;  and  in 
the  same  interview  he  gave  them  his  New  command- 
ment. "  A  new  commandment,"  said  he  "  I  give 
unto  you,  that  ye  love  one  another  as  1  have  loved 
you,"  to  which  I  shall  now  pay  some  attention. 

This  command  he  repeatedly  uttered  in  the  same 
conversation,  as  though  it  were  of  tiie  very  first  im- 
portance, and  on  obedience  to  which,  very  much 
was  depending.  It  may  naturally  be  inquired,  why 
was  Jesus  so  urgent  and  impressive  in  giving  this 
precept  to  his  disciples  ?  And  why  did  he  so  long 
defer  to  correct  their  errors  relating  to  his  mission 
and  his  kingdom  ?  As  Jesus  knew  what  was  in 
man,  he  very  well  knew  that  his  disciples  in  all  ages 
would  be  liable  to  errors,  and  to  differences  of  opin- 
ion, while  in  the  body.  He  also  knew  how  prone 
mankind  are  to  judge  and  censure  one  another  on 
account  of  differences  of  opinion,  or  supposed  errors. 
He  knew,  too,  of  how  great  importance  it  would  be 
that  his  apostles  should  be  united  in  affection,  and 
show  a  constant  regard  to  his  precepts  in  their  ex- 
amples before  the  world.  He  had  before  given 
them  the  Golden  Rule  ;  but  this  was  more  liable  to 
be  misapprehended  than  a  precept  founded  on  his 
own  example — on  what  they  all  knew  to  have  been 
his  conduct  towards  them.  He  therefore  gave  them 
the  *'  new  commandment,"  which,  every  time  it 
should  occur  to  their  minds,  must  naturally  bring  to 
view  his  example  as  the  standard  of  their  love  one 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  67 

to  another.     "  This  is  my   commandment,  that  ye 
love  one  another,  as  I  have  loved  you." 

There  might  be  several  reasons  why  Christ  neg- 
lected to  explain  to  his  apostles  at  an  earlier  period 
the  nature  of  his  kingdom,  and  to  show  them  clearly 
their  error  in  supposing  that  he  had  come  to  reign 
as  a  temporal  Prince.  I  shall  however  mention  but 
one.  The  course  which  he  adopted  gave  an  oppor- 
tunity to  evince  by  his  own  example  the  spirit  of  be- 
nignity and  forbearance,  which  would  become  his 
followers  in  their  treatment  one  of  another,  in  re- 
gard to  supposed  or  real  errors  of  opinion.  Had 
there  been  no  difference  of  opinion  between  him  and 
his  apostles,  there  woukl  have  been  no  opportunity 
for  such  a  display  of  forbearing  love  as  he  evinced 
towards  them.  Hence  the  new  commandment  could 
not  have  appeared  with  the  force  and  importance 
which  it  now  does,  in  view  of  all  the  circumstances 
under  which  it  was  delivered.  The  apostles  them- 
selves could  not  have  had  a  perfect  view  of  its 
force  and  beauty  till  the  day  of  Pentecost,  when 
their  eyes  were  opened.  But  after  this,  they 
could  see  what  errors  they  had  entertained  during 
the  whole  of  Christ's  ministry,  and  what  forbearing 
kindness  he  had  constantly  displayed  towards  them, 
notwithstanding  their  errors.  How  affecting  and 
impressive  must  have  been  the  recollection  of  his 
words. — "  This  is  my  commandment,  that  ye  love 
one  another  as  I  have  loved  you  !"  So  when  differ- 
ences of  opinion  afterwards  occurred  between  any 
of  the  apostles,  or  between  them  and  other  disciples, 


68  LETTERS 

this  new  commandment  was  at  hand,  as  a  light  to 
their  feet  and  a  lamp  to  their  way. 

This  precept  was  addressed  to  the  apostles,  who 
had  personally  witnessed  and  experienced  Christ's 
candor  and  benignity  towards  erring  men  ;  and  the 
words  may  be  regarded  as  the  injunction  of  ahead  of 
a  family  when  about  to  leave  his  children  ;  but  it 
was  doubtless  meant  for  the  benefit  of  Christians  in 
all  succeeding  ages.  For  it  was  at  the  close  of  the 
interview  in  which  this  command  was  uttered,  that 
Jesus  poured  out  his  soul  in  prayer  to  the  Father, 
that  all  who  should  become  believers  in  him  might 
*'  be  one."  It  is  the  love  required  by  this  command- 
ment, which  unites  Christians  to  one  another  and  to 
their  Lord. 

Had  Christians  from  the  beginning  been  duly 
mindful  of  the  dying  injunction  and  prayer  of  Christ, 
they  never  could  have  been  divided  into  hosr 
tile  sects  and  parties  ]  every  species  of  persecution 
would  have  been  avoided ;  and  Christians  would 
have  been  distinguished  in  every  age  by  the  charac- 
teristic mentioned  by  their  Lord  : — "  By  this  shall 
all  men  know  that  ye  are  my  disciples,  if  ye  have 
love  one  to  another." 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  69 


LETTER     X 


Paul's  reasonings  and  expostulations  with 
contending  christians  at  rome. 

My  Christian  Brethren, 

In  the  time  of  Paul,  the  church  at  Rome  was 
composed  partly  of  Jews  and  partly  of  Gentiles,  or 
of  converts  to  Christianity  from  these  two  classes  of 
people.  As  these  converts  had  been  differently  ed- 
ucated, they  possessed  clashing  prejudices  and  opin- 
ions, relating  to  certain  rituals  and  observances  of 
the  Jewish  religion.  This  diversity  of  opinion  and 
prejudice,  gave  rise  not  only  to  disputation  but  to 
censorious  judging  ;  Paul  wrote  to  them  on  the  sub- 
ject, and  exerted  his  reasoning  powers  and  his  in- 
fluence, to  check  the  propensity  to  censoriousness, 
and  to  show  them  how  the  controversy  might  be  put 
to  rest.  As  he  was  an  inspired  teacher,  it  may  be 
useful  to  observe  his  manner  of  treating  his  brethren, 
some  of  whom  he  knew  to  be  in  error. 

'•'  Him  that  is  weak  in  the  faith  receive  ye,  but 
not  to  doubtful  disputations.  For  one  believeth 
that  he  may  eat  all  things  ;  another  who  is  weak 
eateth  herbs.  Let  not  him  that  eateth  despise  him 
that  eateth  not ;  and  let  not  him  that  eateth  not, 
judge  him  that  eateth;  for  God  hath  received  him. 
Who  art  thou  that  judgest  another  man's  servant  ? 
To  his  own  Master  he  standeth  or  falleth.     Yea,  he 

E 


70  LETTERS 

shall  be  holden  up,  for  God  is  able  to  make  him 
stand.  One  man  esteemeth  one  day  above  another. 
Another  esteemeth  every  day  alike.  Let  every  man 
be  fully  persuaded  in  his  own  mind.  He  that  regard- 
eth  the  day,  regardeth  it  to  the  Lord ;  and  he  that 
regardeth  not  the  day,  to  the  Lord  he  doth  not  re- 
gard it.  He  that  eateth,  eateth  to  the  Lord  ;  for  he 
givelh  God  thanks  ;  and  he  that  eateth  not,  to  the 
Lord  he  eateth  not,  and  giveth  God  thanks. — But 
why  dost  thou  judge  thy  brother  ?  or  why  dost  thou 
set  at  nought  thy  brother?  For  we  must  all  stand 
before  the  judgment  seat  of  Christ."  Rom.  xiv.  1 — 6, 
and  10th. 

In  this  passage  we  have  a  case  in  which  a  differ- 
ence of  opinion  had  occasioned  serious  difficulty, 
and  censorious  judging.  Christians  of  the  present 
time  will  probably  say,  that  the  questions  in  dispute, 
were  trifling,  and  ought  to  have  occasioned  no  aliena- 
tion among  brethren.  The  questions,  however,  did 
not  appear  to  be  trifling  to  the  parties  concerned ; 
and  they  were  not,  perhaps,  in  reality  more  trifling 
or  unimportant  than  most  of  the  questions  in  dis- 
pute at  the  present  day.  Party  spirit  can  magnify 
the  importance  of  any  subject  in  favor  of  which  it  is 
indulged.  Besides,  the  questions  at  Rome  involved 
cases  of  conscience  in  relation  to  duty ;  and  such 
questions  cannot  appear  trifling  to  conscientious 
persons.  No  difficulty,  however,  would  have  occur- 
red, no  censorious  judging,  had  each  party  been 
willing  that  the  other  should  obey  the  dictates  of 
conscience,  without  molestation   or  censure.     But 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  71 

one  assumed  the  right  of  judging  for  the  other  ;  and 
this  always  tends  to  mischief.  I  may  then  observe 
the  manner  in  which  Paul  expostulated  with  these 
contending  Christians. 

1.  Paul  did  not  assume  the  right  of  blaming  either 
party,  on  account  of  the  opinions  entertained.  One 
party  or  the  other  must,  indeed,  have  erred  in  judg- 
ment, and  Paul  doubtless  knew  which  party  had  the 
more  correct  opinion.  But  it  appears  that  the  error 
of  opinion  was  regarded  by  him  as  of  little  consider- 
ation, compared  with  the  error  of  temper,  which 
each  party  indulged  towards  the  other.  He  well 
knew  that  people  were  liable  to  differ  in  opinion, 
and  that  it  was  the  duty  of  each  to  love  God  with 
all  his  own  understanding,  and  to  do  what  he  con- 
scientiously believed  that  God  required  of  him. 
Paul  did  not  impute  the  error  of  opinion  to  wicked- 
ness of  heart.  He  had  not  so  learned  Christ,  nor 
his  religion. 

2.  Paul  gave  the  parties  clearly  to  understand, 
that  if  they  obeyed  the  dictates  of  conscience,  act- 
ing uprightly  for  God,  error  of  opinion  would  not 
prevent  the  acceptableness  of  their  different  modes 
of  conduct.  Though  the  parties  diftered  in  practice 
as  well  as  opinion  in  regard  to  days  and  meats  ;  yet 
he  charitably  expressed  the  opinion,  that  both  parties 
aimed  at  thesame  end,  and  that  the  conduct  of  each 
was  acceptable  in  the  sight  of  God.  ''  He  that  re- 
gardeth  the  day,  regardeth  it  to  the  Lord  ;  and  he 
that  regardeth  not  the  day,  to  the  Lord  he  doth  not 


72  LETTERS 

regard  it ;"  that  is,  they  both  aimed  at  the  glory  of 
the  Lord. 

3.  We  should  observe  with  what  solemnity  the 
apostle  expostulated  with  the  parties,  on  account  of 
their  contention  and  censorious  judging.  "  Who 
art  thou  that  judgest  another  man's  servant  ?  To 
his  own  Master  he  standeth  or  falleth ;  yea,  he  shall 
be  holden  up,  for  God  is  able  to  make  him  stand.'* 
Again,  *' Why  dost  thou  judge  thy  brother?  Or 
why  dost  thou  set  at  nought  thy  brother  ?  For 
we  must  all  stand  before  the  judgment  seat  of 
Christ."  Thus  while  he  blamed  neither  party,  on 
account  of  its  opinions,  he  blamed  both  for  their 
contention,  and  their  censorious  manner  of  judging 
one  another. 

4.  It  is  to  be  remarked  that  Paul  did  not  so 
much  as  express  his  opinion  on  the  questions  in  dis- 
pute, till  he  had  assured  them  that  their  difference 
of  opinion  was  not  a  proper  ground  of  contention  or 
of  censure.  But  having  expostulated  with  them  on 
the  unreasonableness  of  their  censorious  conduct 
one  towards  the  other,  he  expressed  his  opinion  on 
a  question  in  dispute.  ''  I  know,  and  am  persuaded 
by  the  Lord  Jesus,  that  there  is  nothing  unclean  in 
itself."  He,  however,  immediately  adds, — "  but  to 
Jiim  that  tJiinketh  anything  unclean,  to  Mm  it  is  un- 
clean'^ 

By  this  decision  he  clearly  maintained  that  the 
conscience  or  judgment  of  every  person,  in  view  of 
the  divine  requirements,  must  be  the  rule  of  his 
duty. 


TO    CHRISTIANS. 


73 


Dr.  Macknight  has  an  important  note  on  the  6th 
verse  of  this  chapter,  a  part  of  which  may  here  be 
quoted.  "  Every  man  ought  to  believe  concern- 
ing his  neighbor  that  in  all  religious  matters  he  acts 
according  to  conscience,  especially  if  he  professes 
so  to  do ;  and  though  his  conscience  may  be  ill  in- 
formed ;  he  should  be  left  to  its  dictates  in  these 
matters.  The  Greek  commentators  affirm  that  the 
rules  in  this  chapter  relate  to  meats  and  fastings 
only,  and  not  to  doctrines  of  faith  and  matters  of 
great  importance.  But  I  see  no  reason  for  that  lim- 
itation. The  rights  of  conscience  and  private  judg- 
ment are  the  more  sacred,  the  more  important  the 
affairs  are  about  which  they  are  exercised.  And, 
therefore,  in  everything  of  importance,  as  well  as  in 
lesser  matters,  a  man's  own  judgment  and  con- 
science, and  not  the  opinion  and  conscience  of  an- 
other, are  appointed  by  Christ  to  be  the  rule  of  his 
conduct." 


LETTER    XI. 

THE    APOSTLE    JAMES    ON    CENSORIOUS   JUDGING. 

My  Christian  Brethren^ 

The   following   impressive   language  was  ad- 
dressed by  James  to  the  Christians  of  his  day. 


74  LETTERS 

**  Speak  not  evil  one  of  another,  brethren.  He 
that  speaketh  evil  of  his  brother,  and  judgeth  his 
brother,  speaketh  evil  of  the  law  and  judgeth  the 
law.  But  if  thou  judge  the  law,  thou  art  not  a  doer 
of  the  law,  but  a  judge.  There  is  one  law-giver 
who  is  able  to  save  and  to  destroy.  Who  art  thou 
that  judgest  another."  James  iv.  11,  1"2. 

The  following  remarks  are  from  Dr.  Macknight's 
paraphrase  of  the  two  verses.  '*  Speak  not  against 
one  another,  brethren,  on  account  of  your  difference 
of  opinions  in  religion.  He  who  speaketh  against 
his  brother  and  condemneth  his  brother  in  matters 
pertaining  to  conscience,  speaketh  against  the  law 
both  of  Moses  and  Christ,  which  forbids  that  kind 
of  speaking.  Thou,  who  art  thou  that  condemnest 
thy  brother,  and  thereby  assumest  the  prerogative  of 
Christ  ?" 

It  may  be  asked,  how  can  it  be  said  that  in  judg- 
ing and  condemning  a  brother  on  account  of  his 
religious  opinions,  we  judge  and  condemn  the  law  ? 
We  practically  judge  and  condemn  the  law  when 
we  do  that  which  the  law  prohibits ;  for  the  language 
of  our  conduct  is,  that  the  law  is  unworthy  to  be 
obeyed.  The  law  forbids  bearing  false  witness;  and 
I  may  be  guilty  of  bearing  false  witness  if  I  accuse 
a  man  of  moral  evil  without  evidence  of  his  guilt. 
His  differing  from  me  in  opinion  is  no  proof  of  guilt 
on  his  part,  for  his  opinion  may  be  right  while  I 
think  it  to  be  erroneous ;  or  if  his  opinion  is  not 
right,  he  may  have  been  led  into  error  by  causes 
very  different  from  that  of  a  depraved  heart.     The 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  75 

law  requires  my  neighbor  to  love  God  with  all  his 
understanding,  and  not  with  mine.  His  differing 
from  me  is  no  proof  that  he  does  not  love  God  with 
all  his  understanding.  By  condemning  him  I  im- 
plicitly say,  that  the  law  is  not  as  it  should  be,  and 
that  the  man  is  blameable  for  not  loving  God  ac- 
cording to  my  understanding.  Again  the  law  says, 
"  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself."  I  must 
therefore  be  as  tender  of  my  brother's  character  as  I 
wish  him  to  be  of  mine.  Do  T  then  think  it  right  in 
him,  not  only  to  impute  to  me  error  of  opinion,  but 
to  ascribe  that  opinion  to  the  pride  or  wickedness 
of  my  heart  1  If  not,  I  practically  speak  against  the 
law  when  I  thus  accuse  my  brother. 

It  would  be  in  vain  to  search  the  scriptures  for 
more  clear  prohibitions  and  expostulations  against 
murder,  than  we  have  against  reviling  and  cen- 
sorious judging  on  account  of  differences  of 
opinion  ;  and  is  it  not  a  lamentable  truth  that  in 
each  of  the  cases  Christians  have  too  commonly 
regarded  custom  as  of  higher  authority  than 
the  prohibitions  of  God  ?  The  sixth  commandment 
is,  "  Thou  shalt  do  no  murder  ;"  but  as  soon  as  the 
rulers  of  two  nations  have  declared  war  against  each 
other,  murder  is  regarded  as  not  only  lawful  but 
laudable.  So  as  soon  as  the  ministers  of  one  sect 
of  Christians  have  ventured  to  denounce  the  people 
of  another  sect  as  heretics,  the  commands,  *' judge 
not"  "  condemn  not,"  "speak  not  evil  one  of  anoth- 
er," are  treated  with  as  little  regard  as  the  sixth 
commandment  is  in  time  of  war.  As  in  time  of 
national  hostilities,  killing  men  is  deemed  a  duty 


76  LETTERS 

and  not  a  crime,  so  it  is  with  censorious  judging  in 
time  of  sectarian  hostilities  ;  and  in  both  cases  the 
most  glaring  violations  of  the  divine  commands  are 
vindicated  on  the  principles  of  necessity  and  self 
preservation. 

There  are  other  melancholy  coincidences  in  these 
two  cases.  In  time  of  war  the  leaders  of  one  party 
will  deliver  harangues,  publish  tracts,  and  insert 
articles  in  newspapers,  of  the  most  inflammatory 
kind,  to  excite  a  spirit  of  hostility  against  the  people 
of  another  country,  against  eminent  individuals, 
against  the  nation  as  a  body,  against  thousands  of 
better  people  than  themselves,  and  against  myriads 
of  whose  real  characters  they  are  perfectly  ignorant. 
I  appeal  to  the  consciences  of  my  fellow  Christians 
to  say,  whether  this  atrocious  policy  has  not  its 
parallel  in  sectarian  hostilities  1  Besides,  when  the 
rulers  of  a  nation  make  war,  not  one  in  a  hundred 
of  those  who  engage  in  the  quarrel,  have  any  correct 
knowledge  respecting  the  real  grounds  of  the  con- 
test, nor  is  in  a  capacity  to  judge  on  which  side 
there  is  the  greater  share  of  blame,  nor  whether,  on 
the  whole,  there  was  the  least  cause  or  necessity 
for  such  a  war.  Yet,  relying  on  their  leaders,  they 
will  calumniate,  condemn  and  fight.  I  need  not 
show  how  this  has  a  parallel  in  sectarian  wars.  But 
I  may  express  the  opinion  that  in  both  cases  the 
laws  of  Christ  are  flagrantly  violated  ;  that  Christian- 
ity can  never  appear  to  advantage  till  such  customs 
are  abolished  ;  and  that  in  both  cases  an  awful  share 
of  responsibility  is  attached  to  the  conduct  of  those 
who  take  the  lead  in  such  conflicts. 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  77 

In  national  wars,  love  of  country  is  the  boast  of 
each  party  in  the  quarrel,  yet  the  course  pursued 
tends  directly  to  fill  both  countries  with  crime  and 
calamity.  So  in  sectarian  strife  men  profess  to  be 
influenced  by  love  to  Christ,  love  to  the  truth,  and 
love  to  the  souls  of  men.  Yet  the  strife  is  carried 
on  by  disobedience  to  the  commands  of  Christ — by 
conduct  manifestly  repugnant  to  his  example  and 
the  spirit  of  his  religion — by  conduct  too,  which 
really  tends  to  the  ruin  of  souls.  The  love  required 
by  the  gospel  worketh  no  ill  to  its  neighbor.  Can 
this  be  said  of  the  love  displayed  in  the  wars  of 
nations,  or  the  wars  of  different  sects  of  Christians? 
If  not,  what  awful  delusions  have  prevailed  in  both 
cases  !  And  how  constantly  is  the  reproof  applica- 
ble— "  Ye  know  not  what  manner  of  spirit  ye  are 
of!"  If  God  should  be  strict  to  mark  this  iniquity, 
who  among  us  would  be  found  able  to  stand? 


LETTER    XII. 

FALSE  STANDARDS  OCCASION  FALSE  ESTIMATES. 

My  Christian  Brethren, 

Mankind  in  their  commercial  dealings  are  often 
defrauded  by  the  use  of  false  balances,  weights  and 


78  LETTERS 

measures.  In  the  concerns  of  religion,  standards 
are  used  for  estimating  the  characters  and  actions  of 
men.  Here,  as  well  as  in  commerce,  there  may  be 
false  standards  by  which  men  may  deceive,  and  be 
deceived.  By  adopting  a  false  standard,  the  people 
of  one  sect  may  overrate  their  own  worth,  and  under- 
value the  worth  of  people  of  other  sects.  It  hence 
becomes  a  serious  question  whether  false  standards 
are  not  in  use  at  the  present  day  ?  and  whether  these 
are  not  the  occasion  of  much  censorious  judging,  as 
well  as  of  self-deception  ? 

Ever  since  Christians  were  divided  into  sects, 
creeds  or  confessions  of  faith  have  been  set  up  as 
standards  of  character,  or  tests  of  moral  worth.  That 
many  of  these  standards  have  been  false  may  be  ob- 
vious from  the  following  considerations  : — 

1.  In  all  the  creed-making  sects,  each  sect  has  a 
standard  of  its  own,  which  is  different,  and  in  some 
particulars  often  directly  opposite  to  that  of  another 
sect.  Of  course,  there  must  be  a  false  standard  with 
one  or  the  other,  and  perhaps  with  both  of  the  two 
clashing  sects. 

2.  It  is  a  known  fact  that  the  creed  of  a  sect  may 
become  so  changed  in  a  course  of  years,  that  what 
was  once  deemed  essential,  is  afterwards  deemed  er- 
roneous ;  still  the  sect  may  retain  its  distinctive 
name. 

3.  All  party  standards  are  formed  by  substituting 
the  inferences  or  explanations  of  fallible  men  for  the 
language  of  the  inspired  writers  :  and  these  tests, 
formed  in  the  vvords  of  man's  wisdom,  are  preferred 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  79 

to  the  language  of  the  Bible,  and  are  passed  as  a  sub- 
stitute for  the  word  of  God,  as  bank  bills  are  made  a 
substitute  for  silver  and  gold.  Is  there  nothing  in 
this  of  too  near  an  approach  to  self-sufficiency  and 
self-exaltation  ? 

4.  "  The  poor  have  the  gospel  preached  to  them" 
— was  a  circumstance  mentioned  by  our  Lord,  as  a 
proof  that  the  gospel  day  had  commenced ;  because 
it  had  been  predicted  that  such  should  be  the  case 
in  the  days  of  the  Messiah,  and  that  the  way  of  ho- 
liness should  be  so  plain  as  to  be  easily  understood 
by  the  illiterate  and  the  way-faring  man.  But  what 
advantage  can  the  gospel  be  to  the  illiterate  and  to 
children,  if  they  are  to  be  measured  by  such  stand- 
ards as  have  been  adopted  by  many  of  the  creed-making 
sects  ?  How  great  a  portion  of  those  who  give  their 
assent  to  such  creeds,  are  totally  incapable  of  judg- 
ing of  their  truth  or  correctness.  Suppose  I  should 
subscribe  a  creed  in  a  foreign  language  with  which 
I  am  unacquainted,  to  obtain  Christian  privileges  ; 
what  would  be  thought  of  me  ?  and  what  should  be 
thought  of  those  who  require  such  a  subscription  ? 

5.  So  far  as  articles  of  faith  are  made  a  test  of 
character  in  the  New  Testament,  they  are  the  follow- 
ing : 

That  Jesus  is  the  Messiah,  the  Son  of  the  living 
God  :  and 

That  God  raised  him  from  the  dead. 

A  belief  in  the  first  of  these  articles  was  the  test 
of  discipleship  during  the  ministry  of  Christ.  After 
his  crucifixion,  a  belief  in   his  resurrection  became 


80  LETTERS 

necessary  to  a  belief  that  he  was  the  Messiah.  Hence 
a  belief  in  the  second  article  was  required,  as  added 
by  the  Apostles.  Accordingly  Paul  in  stating  the 
faith  required  said,  "  That  is  the  word  of  faith  which 
we  preach — that  if  thou  shalt  confess  with  thy 
mouth  the  Lord  Jesus,  and  shalt  believe  in  thy  heart 
that  God  raised  him  from  the  dead,  thou  shalt  be 
saved."  John,  in  stating  the  object  for  which  he 
wrote  his  gospel,  said,  "  These  things  are  written  that 
ye  might  believe  that  Jesus  is  the  Christ,  the  Son  of 
God,  and  that  believing  ye  might  have  life  through 
his  name."  To  persuade  people  to  believe  the  two 
articles  which  have  been  named,  was  the  great  ob- 
ject of  the  sermons  recorded  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apos- 
tles. These,  if  I  mistake  not,  are  the  only  articles 
of  faith,  a  belief  of  which  is  spoken  of  in  the  New 
Testament  as  necessary  to  the  Christian  character, 
or  as  connected  with  regeneration,  pardon,  or  eternal 
life. 

A  cordial  belief  in  these  articles  naturally  led  to 
obedience  to  the  precepts  of  Christ,  and  these  are 
the  appointed  standard  or  test  of  moral  character. 
Avowing  a  belief  in  Jesus  as  the  Messiah,  appears  to 
have  given  such  satisfaction  to  the  Apostles,  that,  on 
such  a  profession,  3000  persons  were  admitted  as 
converts  or  believers  on  the  day  of  pentecost,  the 
very  day  on  which  their  profession  was  made.  To 
be  a  disciple  of  Christ  then  meant  to  be  a  pupil  or 
learner  in  his  school.  For  admission  to  this  school 
or  the  church  of  Christ,  no  articles  of  faith  were 
proposed  as  terms,  but  the  two  which  have  been  men* 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  81 

tioned.  We  are  not,  however,  to  suppose  that  noth- 
ing was  required  of  disciples  but  a  belief  in  these 
articles,  nor  that  Christ  instituted  no  other  test  of 
moral  character.  As  the  followers  of  Jesus  were 
then  a  persecuted  people,  to  acknowledge  him  as  the 
Messiah  under  such  circumstances,  afforded  much 
evidence  of  integrity  of  heart ;  and  when  a  person 
made  this  profession,  he  implicitly  professed  a  desire 
to  come  under  the  guidance  of  Christ,  and  a  willing- 
ness to  conform  to  his  precepts  and  example.  Hence- 
forth the  precepts  of  Christ  were  to  be  regarded  by 
him  as  the  rule  of  duty,  and  the  test  of  Christian 
character.  That  this  is  a  correct  view  of  the  sub- 
ject may  appear  from  the  following  passages  : — 

"  Not  every  one  that  saith  unto  me  Lord,  Lord 
shall  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven ;  but  he  that 
docth  the  will  of  my  Father  who  is  in  heaven."  Matt, 
vii.  21.  "  Therefore,  whosoever  heareth  these  say- 
ings of  mine,  and  doeth  them^  I  will  liken  him  to  a 
wise  man  who  built  his  house  upon  a  rock."  v.  27, 
*'  And  whosoever  doth  not  bear  his  cross  and  come 
after  me  cannot  be  my  disciple."  Luke  xiv.  27,  ''  He 
that  hath  my  commandments  and  keepeth  them,  he 
it  is  thatloveth  me."  John  xiv.  21.  *'  If  ye  keep  my 
commandments  ye  shall  abide  in  my  love."  John  xv. 
10.  "  This  is  my  commandment,  that  ye  love  one 
another  as  I  have  loved  you."  v.  12.  "  Ye  are  my 
friends,  if  ye  do  whatsoever  I  command  you."  v.  14. 
"  Hereby  do  we  know  that  we  know  him,  if  we  keep 
his  commandments.     He  that  saith  T  know  him,  and 


83  LETTERS 

keepeth  not  his  commandments  is  a  liar,  and  the 
truth  is  not  in  him."  1  John  ii.  3,  4. 

Besides  these  plain  declarations,  as  to  the  proper 
standard  of  Christian  character,  we  are  assured  both 
by  Christ  and  his  apostles,  that  works  of  obedience 
will  be  rewarded  at  the  final  account,  and  that  works 
of  disobedience  will  be  punished.  But  where  shall 
we  find  in  the  Bible  the  least  evidence  that  any  man 
will  be  rewarded  or  accepted  on  account  of  his  be- 
lief of  such  doctrines  as  are  at  this  day  made  the  test 
of  Christian  character  ?  I  know  not ;  and  I  suspect 
that,  after  due  examination,  every  honest  man  will  be 
able  to  say  the  same. 

Before  I  dismiss  the  subject  of  false  standards  or 
tests,  it  may  be  proper  to  mention  one  more,  which 
I  deem  as  dangerous  as  a  party  creed.  It  has  been 
the  opinion  of  many  persons  of  different  sects,  that 
the  heart  of  a  true  Christian,  a  spiritually-minded 
man,  is  a  good  test  of  the  truth  or  falsehood  of  a 
proposed  doctrine — that  if  the  doctrine  be  true,  it 
will  be  sweet  to  his  taste — if  false,  it  will  be  disgust- 
ing. Hence  a  believer  in  this  opinion  is  prepared  to 
say,  "  I  know  that  this  or  that  doctrine  is  tiue  from 
my  own  experience,"  and  in  the  same  confident  man- 
ner he  will  afiirm  of  another  doctrine  that  he  hiows 
it  to  be  false.  On  this  principle  too,  the  same  per- 
sons often  feel  at  liberty  to  censure  the  hearts  of  their 
dissenting  brethren.  This  opinion  has  sver  appear- 
ed to  me  delusive  and  dangerous ;  and  in  support  of 
this  view  of  it,  I  shall  suggest  the  following  consid- 
erations. 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  83 

1.  Persons  of  different  sects  urge  the  same  mode 
of  proof  in  favor  of  opposite  doctrines,  each  affirm- 
ing that  he  knows  his  beloved  doctrine  to  be  true  from 
his  own  experience,  or  its  agreement  with  his  own 
heart.  When  such  opposite  results  occur  from  the 
same  mode  of  proof,  there  must  be  gross  delusion  on 
one  side  or  the  other,  and  it  may  be  so  on  both. 

2.  I  believe  it  to  be  a  fact  that  a  good  Christian 
will  receive  for  truth  any  doctrine  which  he  believes 
to  have  been  revealed  by  God — ^just  as  a  dutiful  and 
confiding  child  will  receive  for  truth  whatever  his  pi- 
ous parent  inculcates  as  true  and  important.  But 
such  is  the  ambiguity  of  language,  and  such  the  im- 
perfection of  the  child's  understanding,  that  he  may 
misapprehend  the  meaning  of  the  words  uttered  by 
his  father,  and  imbibe  an  idea  /ery  different  from 
the  one  .the  parent  meant  to  impress  on  his  mind.  In 
like  manner  the  humble  and  confiding  child  of  God 
may  form  an  incorrect  idea  from  the  language  used 
in  the  Bible.  Besides,  as  children  have  very  fallible 
guides  in  their  parents,  so  have  adult  Christians  falli- 
ble expositors  in  their  public  teachers. 

3.  There  are  thousand  of  cases  in  which  falsehood 
will  afford  as  great,  and  even  greater  delight  to  a 
good  man  than  the  truth.  I  will  give  one  example — 
A  benevolent  father  hears  that  his  prodigal  son,  who 
had  been  absent  for  ten  years,  is  now  on  his  return, 
a  penitent  and  reformed  man.  The  report  is  accom- 
panied with  such  circumstancesas  precludes  all  doubt 
of  its  correctness.  The  father's  heart  leaps  for  joy. 
But  alas !  the  report  was  founded  on  a  mistake,  and 


84  LETTERS 

of  this  the  father  is  informed  by  the  next  mail.  The 
report,  however,  while  uncontradicted,  had  the  same 
effect  that  it  would  have  had  if  true  ; — and  the  fa- 
ther's feeling  towards  his  son  were  as  apparent  and  as 
commendable  as  they  would  have  been  had  there 
been  no  mistake  in  the  case. 

Should  it  be  said  that  this  case  cannot  illustrate 
the  effect  of  divine  truth  on  the  mind  of  a  good  man, 
I  may  ask,  why  not  ?  The  report  was  indeed  of  an 
historic  nature  ;  but  the  same  may  be  said  of  many 
of  the  important  truths  of  the  gospel.  It  was  so  with 
the  glad  tidings  of  the  birth  of  the  Messiah  ;  and 
such  were  the  truths  relating  to  his  baptism,  his  min- 
istry, his  miracles,  his  death,  his  resurrection  and 
ascension.  Historical  truths,  therefore,  may  be  di- 
vine truths  of  the  first  importance. 

4.  When  any  person  makes  his  own  heart  or  ex- 
perience a  test,  by  which  to  judge  of  the  truth  or 
falsehood  of  a  particular  doctrine,  he  assumes  more 
than  can  be  easily  reconciled  to  Christian  humility. 
For  he  assumes  for  a  fact  that  he  is  not,  like  other 
men,  liable  to  be  misled  by  false  information,  by  the 
ambiguity  of  words  or  phrases,  by  passion,  nor  by 
prejudice — in  a  word,  that  his  mind  is  so  enlighten- 
ed and  his  heart  so  pure,  that  he  is  far  less  liable  to 
err  than  any  one  of  the  multitude  of  people  who 
dissent  from  his  opinions. 

Were  there  no  other  way  to  account  for  the  pleas- 
ure which  a  good  man  feels  in  hearing  a  certain 
doctrine,  but  its  truth,  there  would  be  less  of  danger 
in  his  making  his  heart  a  test  of  truth  than  now  ex- 


TO   CHRISTIANS.  85 

ists.  But  even  in  that  case,  his  delight  could  be  proof 
only  to  himself,  unless  others  could  know  the  state 
of  his  heart.  Could  it  be  shown  that  a  good  man's 
heart  is  an  infallible  test  of  truth,  and  could  a  man 
be  found  whose  goodness  would  be  universally  ac- 
knowledged, then  whatever  creed  he  should  approve 
might  be  safely  adopted,  and  made  a  test  by  which 
to  estimate  the  hearts  of  his  fellow-men.  But  where 
shall  such  a  man  be  found  ?  Should  any  one  pro- 
pose himself  for  such  a  purpose,  might  not  his  hu- 
mility be  justly  called  in  question  ?  Yet  what  better 
than  such  arrogance  is  seen  in  any  man  who  makes 
his  own  heart  the  test  of  truth,  and  his  own  creed 
the  standard  by  which  to  estimate  the  moral  worth  of 
his  fellow-men  ? 

I  have  not  a  doubt  that  thousands  of  pious  Catho- 
lics have  found  great  delight  in  the  doctrine  of  tran- 
substantiation,  while  partaking  of  the  bread  and  wine 
in  the  Lord's  supper.  But  their  delight  results  from 
a  belief  that  the  doctrine  is  true,  and  not  from  the 
truth  of  the  doctrine.  So  good  people  of  each  sect 
may  find  pleasure  in  their  respective  doctrines,  from 
a  belief  that  they  are  true,  honorable  to  God,  and 
useful  to  man.  Such  pleasure  in  a  doctrine  may  be 
a  proof  that  it  is  sincerely  believed  to  be  true,  but 
not  a  proof  of  its  truth  or  correctness. 


86  LETTERS 


LETTER  XIII. 

THE    DISREGARDED   PARABLE, 

My  Christian  Brethren, 

The  Gospel  contains  one  parable  which  seems 
to  me  to  have  been  very  much  overlooked  or  disre- 
garded. I  shall  copy  the  parable  according  to  New- 
combe's  translation.  "  Then  he  spake  a  parable  to 
those  that  were  invited,  when  he  marked  how  they 
chose  out  of  the  chief  places ;  saying  unto  them, 
When  thou  art  invited  by  any  man  to  a  marriage 
feast,  take  not  the  chief  place  ;  lest  a  more  honora- 
ble man  than  thou  be  invited  by  him ;  and  he  that 
invited  thee  and  him  come,  and  say  to  thee,  Give 
place  to  this  man  ;  and  then  thou  begin  to  take  the 
lowest  place  with  shame.  But  when  thou  art  invi- 
ted, go  and  take  the  lowest  place ;  that,  when  he 
who  invited  thee  cometh,  he  may  say  unto  thee, 
Friend,  go  up  higher.  Then  thou  wilt  have  honor 
in  the  presence  of  those  that  are  at  meat  with  thee. 
For  every  one  that  exalteth  himself  shall  be  hum- 
bled ;  and  he  that  humbleth  himself  shall  be  exalt- 
ed."    Luke  xiv.  7—10. 

On  three  different  occasions  our  Lord  uttered  the 
words  with  which  this  parable  is  closed.  The  par- 
able of  the  Pharisee  and  Publican  is  closed  in  the 
same  manner  ;  and  the  same  words  were  also  used 
when  the  Messiah  cautioned  his  disciples  against 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  87 

imitating  the  arrogance  of  the  Pharisees,  who  loved 
the  uppermost  rooms  at  feasts,  the  chief  seats  in  the 
synagogues,  and  to  be  called  of  men  Rabbi,  Rabbi. 
The  reason  which  he  gave  for  the  caution  was  this, 
"  For  every  one  that  exalteth  himself  shall  be  abas- 
ed; and  he  that  humbleth  himself  shall  be  exalted." 
We  may  therefore  feel  assured  that  these  words  con- 
tain a  lesson  of  great  importance,  and  that  the  par- 
able which  has  been  quoted,  and  so  often  disregard- 
ed, was  uttered  by  our  Lord  for  a  higher  purpose 
than  merely  to  teach  his  disciples  a  principle  of  po- 
liteness, or  how  they  should  conduct  at  common 
marriage  feasts.  More  than  once  he  represented 
'  the  Gospel  message  as  an  invitation  to  a  marriage 
feast,  or  great  supper.  Nor  can  it  be  doubted  that 
by  the  parable  it  was  his  purpose  to  teach  his  disci- 
ples a  lesson  of  gospel  humility,  and  to  beware  of 
indulging  an  undue  self-esteem  in  comparing  them- 
selves with  others.  He  well  knew  how  prone  men 
are  to  overrate  their  own  moral  worth,  and  to  mis- 
take or  undervalue  the  characters  of  those  who  dis- 
sent from  their  views. 

This  admonitory  parable  is  worthy  to  be  regarded 
by  different  sects  of  Christians,  as  well  as  by  indi- 
viduals of  the  same  sect.  Those  who  are  well  ac- 
quainted with  the  present  state  of  things  in  our 
own  country  must  be  aware,  that  persons  of  more 
than  one  sect  are  eager  for  the  higher  places,  and 
assume  them  with  very  little  ceremony.  Nor  are 
there  wanting  persons  who  seem  disposed  to  assume 
the  authority  of  the  Master  of  the  Gospel  feast,  and 


88  LETTERS 

to  exclude  from  any  place  at  their  Lord's  table  such 
as  cannot  acquiesce  in  their  party  creeds.  Of  the 
many  who  claim  the  higher  places,  some  of  them 
must  be  disappointed  when  the  King  shall  come  in 
to  view  the  guests,  and  assign  to  each  his  rank. 
They  cannot  all  possess  the  places  which  they  have 
claimed  ;  and  how,  on  that  occasion,  will  those  feel 
who  shall  be  ordered  to  "  go  down  lower"  and 
"  give  place"  perhaps  to  thousands  who  are  now  by 
them  despised  as  unworthy  of  any  place  in  the  fam- 
ily of  Christ.  In  this  way  will  probably  be  fulfilled 
or  verified  another  admonitory  remark  of  our  Lord  : 
— "  Many  that  are  first  shall  be  last,  and  the  last 
shall  be  first."  Those  who  are  now  first  in  self-es- 
teem have  reason  to  fear  and  tremble.  For  every 
one  that  exalteth  himself  shall  be  abased  ;  and  he 
that  humbleth  himself  shall  be  exalted. 

What  intelligent  and  good  person  does  not  know 
that  men  are  very  liable  to  err  in^  estimating  their 
own  characters,  and  in  comparing  them  with  the 
characters  of  others  ?  And  since  our  Lord  has 
given  us  such  solemn  and  repeated  admonitions  on 
this  very  subject,  is  it  not  surprising  that  so  many  of 
different  sects  are  to  be  found,  who  unblushingly 
assume  the  higher  places  ;  and  who  practically,  if 
not  verbally,  say  that  they  are  much  better  than  any 
who  dissent  from  their  opinions  ?  If  this  be  not 
exalting  themselves,  I  know  of  nothing  in  human 
conduct  to  which  the  admonitory  parable  will  apply. 

Is  it  not  too  common  to  see  in  the  writings  of  par- 
tizans  of  different  sects,  not  merely  rash  censures  of 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  0\f 

the  opinions  of  others,  but  of  the  hearts  or  moral 
characters  of  all  who  possess  such  opinions  1  Are 
not  similar  censures  also  heard  from  the  pulpit,  and 
seen  in  the  manner  in  which  the  people  of  one  de- 
nomination treat  their  brethren  of  another  1  How 
much  more  of  Gospel  humility  and  Christian  love 
would  writers  and  preachers  display,  if  they  would 
kindly  endeavor  to  convince  others  of  their  suppos- 
ed errors  in  opinion,  and  leave  the  judgment  of 
their  moral  condition  to  Him  who  knows  the  heart, 
and  who  has  said  to  his  fallible  disciples  "  Judge 
not" — "  Condemn  not."  Some  self-confident  per- 
sons probably  think  there  can  be  little  danger  of 
their  censuring  good  persons,  while  they  only  con- 
demn such  as  they  verily  believe  to  be  in  error.  But 
let  them  remember  with  what  daring  confidence  the 
scribes  and  pharisees  censured  Him  whom  the  Fa- 
ther had  sent  to  be  the  Saviour  of  the  world. 

What  well  informed  Protestant  has  not  been 
shocked  at  the  confidence  with  which  some  Catho- 
lics have  asserted  the  doctrine  of  transubstantiation, 
and  denounced  as  heretics  all  who  deny  that  doc- 
trine! But  this  indiscreet  conduct  of  a  Catholic 
may  be  a  mirror  in  which  many  Protestants  may  see 
their  own  dispositions.  The  Catholic  has  as  good 
a  right  to  assume  the  highest  place  as  the  Protes- 
tant ;  but  neither  of  them  can  do  it  without  expos- 
ing himself  to  the  dishonor  of  being  publicly  told 
by  the  Master  of  the  feast  to  take  a  lower  place. 
For  those  who  have  the  better  claim  to  the  higher 
places,  are  too  humble  to  assume  them,  or  to  take 
them  without  beincr  ordered  so  to  do. 


9D  LETTERS 

In  extempore  speaking  men  have  not  always  suf- 
ficient time  for  premeditation,  and  in  the  heat  of 
their  zeal,  they  are  very  liable  to  utter  things  which 
will  not  bear  an  impartial  review,  and  which  are  un- 
justly reproachful  to  others.  But  in  writing  for  the 
pulpit  or  the  press,  I  think  it  would  be  a  good  rule, 
after  having  written,  seriously  to  examine  the  copy 
and  inquire,  whether  nothing  has  been  penned  which 
is  contrary  to  the  New  Commandment,  or  the  Gol- 
den Rule — nothing  which  evinces  the  disposition  to 
take  the  highest  place,  or  that  must  excite  the  idea 
that  the  writer  is  one  of  those  who  "  trust  in  them- 
selves that  they  are  righteous  and  despise  others." 
In  such  a  review  of  what  has  been  written,  it  might 
be  useful  for  the  writer  to  inquire,  how  the  language 
and  tone  he  has  used  would  be  likely  to  appear  to 
him,  if  adopted  by  a  person  of  another  denomina- 
tion against  himself;  and  then  erase  whatever  he 
would  deem  anti-christian  and  unkind,  if  used  by 
another  in  an  exchange  of  circumstances.  Should 
the  parable  of  our  Lord  be  duly  regarded  in  future, 
in  conducting  religious  Newspapers  and  other  Peri- 
odicals, the  effects  may  be  happy  in  relation  to  the 
progress  of  religion,  and  the  peace  of  the  Christian 
world. 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  91 

LETTER    XIV. 

EXAMPLE    OF    THE    FOUR    EVANGELISTS. 

My  Christian  Brethren^ 

Seldom,  if  ever,  had  any  ministers  of  religion 
greater  provocation  to  use  the  language  of  reproach, 
or  more  sure  ground  on  which  to  censure  the  hearts 
of  fellow-men,  than  the  evangelists  had  to  judge  and 
censure  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  and  others  who 
were  agents  in  persecuting  the  Messiah.  In  this 
case  there  was  something  more  than  a  diversity  of 
opinion — there  were  acts  of  flagrant  injustice  and 
abuse.  What  then  was  the  manner  of  the  evangel- 
ists in  writing  the  history  of  our  Lord,  and  the  treat- 
ment he  received  from  his  persecutors  1 

In  writing  their  histories,  the  evangelists  had  fre- 
quent occasion  to  state  the  opposition  which  the 
Messiah  received — the  manner  in  which  he  was 
treated — the  snares  which  were  laid  to  entangle  him, 
and  the  accusations  brought  against  him.  Near  the 
close  of  their  history  they  had  occasion  to  state  the 
conduct  of  the  chief  priests,  the  sanhedrim,  and  rulers 
of  the  people,  in  hiring  Judas  to  betray  him,  in  em- 
ploying soldiers  to  arrest  him — their  treatment  of 
him  while  on  trial — -suborning  false-witnesses,  their 
mockings  and  derisions,  their  sending  him  to  Pilate 
to  obtain  a  sentence  of  crucifixion,  their  stirring  up 
the  people  and  exciting  the  clamorous  cry^ — "  Cruci- 
fy him  I  Crucify  him  !"   They  also  mention  what  oc- 


92  LETTERS 

curred  at  the  crucifixion — how  even  the  ministers  of 
religion  insulted  him  in  his  agonies. 

Now  let  it  be  remembered  that  all  these  writers 
were  friends  and  disciples  of  Jesus  ;  and  two  of  them 
his  apostles,  who  had  witnessed  his  ministry,  were 
members  of  his  family,  and  strongly  attached  to 
him  as  their  Lord.  It  may  also  be  considered  how 
certain  it  was  to  them  that  the  character  of  Jesus  was 
without  spot  and  blameless  ;  that  his  doctrines  and 
precepts  were  divine  truth,  and  of  the  highest  im- 
portance to  mankind.  And  that  all  the  opposition 
against  him  was  groundless  and  unreasonable.  Had 
the  evangelists  then  been  influenced  by  party  feel- 
ings, we  should  doubtless  have  found  in  their  narra- 
tives severe  reproaches  and  accusations  against  the 
persecutors  of  the  Messiah,  and  high  encomiums  of 
his  character  and  conduct.  But  in  vain  do  we  look 
into  their  writings  for  anything  of  this  kind.  In  the 
most  simple  and  artless  manner  they  related  such 
facts  as  might  enable  others  to  judge  of  the  conduct 
and  character  of  the  parties.  As  became  faithful 
and  dispassionate  witnesses,  they  impartially  gave 
their  testimony  to  facts.  They  neither  applaud  their 
Lord,  nor  reproach  his  enemies,  by  expressing  their 
own  feelings  in  favor  of  him  or  against  them.  "  The 
historians,"  says  Dr.  Campbell,  "  speak  of  nothing, 
not  even  the  most  atrocious  actions  of  our  Lord's 
persecutors  with  symptoms  of  emotion — no  angry 
epithet,  or  pathetic  exclamation  can  escape  them — 
not  a  word  that  betrays  passion  in  the  writers,  or  is 
calculated  to  excite  the  passions  of  the  reader." 

These  facts  are  remarkable ;  and,  in  the  purpose 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  93 

of  God,  they  were  probably  meant  for  our  good — 
meant  to  have  a  moral  influence  on  the  ministers  of 
the  Gospel,  on  ecclesiastical  historians,  and  on  all 
who  profess  the  religion  of  the  Lord  Jesus.  If  ever 
there  was  a  time  when  the  spirit  of  resentment,  re- 
proach and  censure  was  commendable,  such  it  would 
seem  was  the  time  when  the  evangelists  wrote  their 
histories.  But  where  shall  we  find  four  other  wri- 
ters who  so  perfectly  conformed  to  our  Lord's  in- 
junctions, ''judge  not,"  '^  condemn  not,"  ''Let  your 
yea,  be  yea,  and  your  nay,  nay."  It  cannot  be 
doubted  that  the  evangelists  clearly  understood  the 
meaning  of  these  precepts,  or  prohibitions;  and 
they  seem  to  have  been  disposed  to  give  an  example 
of  obedience  to  them  which  would  be  worthy  of  im- 
itation. They  had  learned  of  him  who  was  meek 
and  lowly,  and  they  exemplified  his  spirit  in  their 
writings. 

I  cannot  but  regard  it  as  one  of  the  best  evidences 
that  the  evangelists  wrote  under  the  influence  of  the 
divine  spirit,  that  they  all  so  perfectly  agree  in  the 
manner  of  their  writing,  or  the  temper  they  displayed 
in  speaking  of  men  who  had  persecuted  their  Lord 
even  unto  death.  They  wrote  at  diflferent  times,  in 
different  countries,  without  any  pre-concerted  plan  ; 
yet  all  under  the  direction  of  the  same  Spirit. 
Though  the  writers  were /owr,  the  Spirit  was  but  one, 
and  that  the  most  amiable. 

Not  only  were  the  Evangelists  of  a  forbearing 
spirit,  in  speaking  of  their  enemies,  but  they  were 
frank  and  unreserved  in  stating  the  errors  and  faults 

G 


94  LETTERS 

of  their  own  party.  They  not  only  record  the  con- 
duct of  Judas  in  betraying  their  Lord,  and  the  con- 
duct of  Peter  in  denying  him  ;  but  they  also  re- 
cord the  disputes  of  the  apostles,  about  which  of 
them  should  be  the  prime  minister,  while  they  were  so 
in  the  dark  as  to  suppose  that  Jesus  had  come  to 
reign  as  a  temporal  prince  on  the  throne  of  David — 
how  James  and  John  would  have  called  fire  from 
heaven  to  avenge  the  unkind  treatment  given  to 
their  Master  by  the  Samaritans  ;  and  how  they  all 
forsook  him  and  fled,  when  he  was  arrested  by  a 
band  of  soldiers. 

The  conduct  of  the  Evangelists  in  recording  the 
miscarriages  and  errors  of  their  own  party,  has  some- 
thing in  it  deserving  of  special  notice.  It  does  not 
appear  to  have  been  done  to  fix  reproach  on  the 
character  of  any  one,  but  to  furnish  an  opportunity 
the  more  fully  to  illustrate  the  forbearing  spirit  of 
our  Lord  towards  them,  while  he  knew  them  to  be 
very  imperfect,  and  in  great  errors  of  opinion. 

How  happy  it  would  have  been  for  the  world  had 
all  the  ministers  of  the  Gospel  uniformly  displayed 
the  forbearing  spirit  of  our  Lord  and  the  four  Evan- 
gelists !  But  when  we  compare  many  of  the  wri- 
tings of  ministers  of  past  ages  and  of  the  present 
day  with  the  writings  of  the  Evangelists,  how  lament- 
able is  the  contrast !  When  the  Evangelists  had 
closed  their  narratives  of  important  facts,  they  fore- 
bore  to  subjoin  any  bitter  remarks,  appeals,  or  in- 
Tectives,  to  excite  prejudice  against  those  who  had 
acted  as  enemies  to  them  or  their  Lord.  This 
caution  appears  highly  commendable,  when  we  con- 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  95 

sider  that  they  were  writing  memoirs  of  one  who  was 
so  dear  to  them,  and  how  naturally  it  might  have 
been  supposed  that  their  minds  were  strongly  pre- 
possessed against  his  persecutors.  How  different 
from  this  has  too  often  been  the  conduct  of  ministers 
of  the  Gospel,  in  speaking  of  brethren  who  only  dis- 
sented from  them  in  opinion  !  How  often,  on  such 
ground,  have  many  ventured  to  censure  the  hearts 
of  their  dissenting  brethren,  when  they  might  have 
known  themselves  to  be  in  such  a  manner  interested 
and  prejudiced  persons,  as  would  disqualify  them  for 
jurors  in  the  opinion  of  well-informed  and  impartial 
men  !  And  not  content  with  this,  how  many,  under 
such  circumstances,  have  dared  to  do  what  they 
could  to  excite  prejudice  in  the  minds  of  others 
against  their  dissenting  brethren !  How  different 
from  this  were  the  dispositions  and  the  conduct  of 
the  four  Evangelists ! 


LETTER     XV. 

PERNICIOUS  EFFECTS  OF  CENSORIOUS  JUDGING. 

My  Christian  Brethren, 

As  censorious  judging  has  been  shown  to  be 
as  clearly  forbidden  by  the  Gospel  as  theft  or  mur- 


96  LETTERS 

der,  it  is  natural  to  infer,  that  it  must  be  pernicious 
in  its  effects.  Some  of  which  have  been  incidentally 
mentioned  ;  but  others  of  them  seem  to  demand 
more  distinct  notice. 

1.  Censorious  judging,  on  account  of  differences 
of  opinion,  tends  to  divert  the  attention  of  people 
from  the  law  of  love  as  the  true  standard  of  Chris- 
tian character,  and  to  fix  it  on  the  creed  of  the  party 
to  which  the  persons  severally  belong.  Hence  in- 
stead of  regarding  the  divine  precepts  as  a  common 
standard  for  all,  each  party  has  a  standard  of  its 
own  ;  and  then  party  love  very  naturally  becomes  a 
substitute  for  that  benevolence  which  is  the  fulfilling 
of  the  law,  and  the  bond  of  peace.  The  conse- 
quences of  this  must  be  dreadful. 

2.  The  practice  tends  to  prevent  the  usefulness  of 
those  who  are  censured  and  defamed.  It  cannot  be 
reasonably  doubted  that  the  censorious  conduct  of 
the  scribes  and  pharisees  did  much  to  prevent  the 
success  of  the  preaching  of  even  Christ  and  his 
apostles.  Their  slanderous  accusations  could  not 
fail  to  prejudice  the  minds  of  their  adherents  against 
the  Saviour  and  his  doctrines.  New  opinions,  or 
opinions  which  are  regarded  as  new,  are  very  com- 
monly deemed  erroneous  and  dangerous,  whether 
they  be  true  or  false  ;  and  their  propagators  are 
generally  calumniated  as  wicked  men.  It  was  so 
with  Christ  and  his  apostles.  The  evils  of  this 
cruel  and  mischievous  policy  have  been  in  some 
measure  counteracted  by  that  law  of  providence 
which  usually  produces  in  the  minds  of  the  consid- 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  97 

erate  a  sympathy  for  the  persecuted.  Were  it  not 
for  this,  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  how  a  reformation 
of  doctrines  could  ever  be  effected  against  the  clamor 
which  is  so  uniformly  raised  against  the  teachers  of 
new  opinions. 

3.  The  practise  of  censorious  judging  also  tends 
to  diminish  the  usefulness  of  those  who  indulge 
themselves  in  it.  For  it  tends  to  blind  their  own 
eyes,  and  to  turn  off"  their  attention  from  the  care  of 
their  own  hearts — it  also  sours  and  embitters  their 
minds,  and  thus  prevents  the  exhibition  of  that  meek 
and  quiet  spirit  which  is  necessary  to  a  person's  own 
usefulness.  Their  conduct  may  be  applauded  by 
persons  of  their  own  disposition ;  but  the  truly  hum- 
ble of  their  own  party  must  be  shocked  by  the  con- 
trast between  such  conduct  and  the  precepts  of  the 
Gospel. 

4.  This  odious  practice  tends  to  excite  and  cher- 
ish the  spirit  of  war.  The  war  spirit  is  but  the  cen- 
sorious spirit  acted  out  in  political  conflicts.  Hence 
the  person  who  indulges  the  censorious  spirit  must 
naturally  be  in  a  great  measure  blind  to  the  evils  of 
war  and  persecution. 

5.  Censorious  judging  tends  to  prevent  the  pro- 
gress of  light  and  truth,  as  well  as  of  love  and 
peace.  When  new  views  of  any  doctrine  or  of  any 
passage  of  Scripture  are  discovered  and  proposed, 
it  is  by  no  means  certain  that  they  are  true,  nor 
that  they  are  false.  All  improvements  or  advances 
are  made  by  new  discoveries.  True  wisdom  would 
dictate  that  such  discoveries  should  be  examined 


98  LETTERS 

with  impartiality  and  candor,  not  hastily  received 
nor  rashly  rejected.  How  happy  it  might  have  been 
for  myriads  of  the  Jews  had  they  but  candidly  ex- 
amined the  new  doctrines,  or  new  views  of  religion 
inculcated  by  the  Messiah  !  But  self-sufficiency 
blinded  the  minds  of  the  scribes  and  pharisees  ;  so 
they  rejected  the  counsels  of  God  against  themselves 
and  led  others  into  the  ditch. — People  of  this  age 
should  take  warning  by  iheir  sad  example. 

6.  The  practice  in  question  has  a  pernicious  in- 
fluence on  the  rising  generation.  It  gives  them 
false  views  of  the  nature  of  true  religion.  The 
children  of  different  sects  naturally  imbibe  the  feel- 
ings as  well  as  the  opinions  of  their  respective  pa- 
rents, and  of  course  grow  up  with  a  spirit  of  hostility 
towards  such  as  are  despised  and  reproached  by 
their  guides.  How  exceedingly  pernicious  must 
have  been  this  practice  to  the  Jewish  children  in 
the  days  of  the  Messiah  !  Perhaps  stronger  preju- 
dices never  existed  against  any  Teacher  than  the 
unbelievincr  Jews  indulcred  towards  him.  The  chil- 
dren  of  course  heard  him  reviled  as  a  Sabbath  break- 
er, a  glutton,  a  drunkard,  an  impostor  and  a  blas- 
phemer. The  common  people  sometimes  ''  heard 
him  gladly,"  and  they  might  perhaps  generally  have 
done  so  to  their  own  advantage,  had  it  not  been  for 
the  slanderous  tongues  of  their  religious  teachers. 
But  these  leading  men  embittered  the  minds  of  their 
followers  against  the  Messiah,  and  prepared  them  to 
raise  the  cry — *'  Crucify  him  !  Crucify  him  !"  It 
seems  in  fact  that  the  prejudices  thus  formed  and 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  99 

transmitted  have  been  hereditary  evils  among  "the 
Jews  in  all  quarters  of  the  world  for  eighteen  hun- 
dred years.  The  Jew9  were  indeed  driven  from 
their  own  country  and  dispersed  among  the  nations; 
but  wherever  they  went  they  seem  to  have  carried 
with  them  their  prejudices  against  the  Messiah  and 
his  followers  ;  and  their  children  from  age  to  age  have 
been  educated  in  these  prejudices.  Similar  preju- 
dices have  existed  between  Christians  and  Mahome- 
tans, and  between  Christians  of  different  sects  one 
towards  another.  Children  in  this  country — and  per- 
haps in  every  Christian  country,  are  trained  up  with 
prejudices  against  many  good  people  of  different  de- 
nominations from  the  one  to  which  they  respectively 
belong  ;  so  that  these  prejudices,  like  those  of  the 
Jews,  are  likely  to  be  transmitted  to  unborn  genera- 
tions. As  it  was  among  the  Jews,  so  there  is  reason 
to  believe  it  is  among  Christians,  that  the  bitter  prej- 
udices which  exist  between  different  sects  may  be 
principally  ascribed  to  the  influence  of  their  teach- 
ers. What  an  awful  share  of  responsibility  then  is 
connected  with  the  conduct  of  such  ministers  as  em- 
ploy their  influence  to  excite,  cherish,  and  inflame  the 
prejudices  of  one  sect  of  Christians  against  another! 
To  reconcile  such  conduct  with  the  new  command- 
ment, or  with  the  prayer  of  Christ  for  his  disciples, 
is  to  me  as  impossible,  as  to  reconcile  with  the  same 
standards  the  political  hostilities  of  Christian  na- 
tions. A  very  great  portion  of  the  depravity  of 
Christendom  at  the  present  time  may  perhaps  be 
justly  ascribed  to  the  anti-christian  practice  of  dif- 
ferent sects  in  reviling  one  another. 


100  LETTERS 


LETTER  XVI. 


VICES  COMPARED. 


My  Christian  Brethren, 

Within  a  iew  years  that  species  of  intemper- 
ance which  results  from  the  use  of  strong  drink  has 
excited  much  attention,  and  called  forth  commenda- 
ble exertions  for  its  suppression.  By  publishing  the 
result  of  various  inquiries  respecting  the  extent  to 
which  the  vice  had  prevailed,  and  its  numerous  mis- 
chiefs, much  astonishment  was  produced.  People 
had  not  been  aware  of  the  extent  of  these  evils  ;  and 
many  became  alarmed,  and  willing  to  make  exertions 
to  stop  the  flood  which  threatened  to  desolate  the 
country. 

On  further  inquiry  it  may  be  found,  that  another 
species  of  intemperance  prevails  in  the  land  to  a 
greater  extent  than  hard  drinking  ;  and  that  its  mis- 
chiefs are  not  less  to  be  deplored.  Censorious  judg- 
ing is  a  vice  which  results  from  the  indulgence  of 
party  spirit ;  and  this  spirit  is  not  less  pernicious 
than  rum  or  whiskey.  By  either  of  them  men  may 
become  intoxicated  even  to  madness, — and  of  course 
prove  dangerous  and  troublesome  members  of  soci- 
ety. Party  spirit  has  often  produced  such  intoxication 
as  to  make  people  believe  that  they  were  doing  God 
service  by  flagrant  violations  of  the  law  of  love.     In- 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  101 

toxication  from  strong  drink,  seldom  proceeds  from 
hatred  to  fellow-men ;  but  intoxication  from  party 
spirit  has  the  appearance  of  proceeding  from  ill  will, 
and  on  this  account  is  more  odious  than  that  which 
occurs  from  hard  drinking. 

That  species  of  intemperance  from  which  censo- 
rious judging  originates,  is  not  confined  to  any  sect 
or  party,  in  politics  or  religion.  It  is  a  common  and 
contagious  disease — so  common  that  its  evils  seem 
to  be  in  a  great  measure  overlooked,  except  by  those 
who  are  personally  assailed  and  injured. 

Much  has  been  truly  said  of  the  numerous  broils 
which  occur  in  families  and  societies  by  intemperate 
drinking.  Much  of  the  boxing,  duelling,  and  blood- 
shed in  various  forms  is  accounted  for  in  this  way. 
But  do  not  similar  evils  occur  from  party  spirit.  Be- 
sides occasional  paroxysms  of  rage  and  violence,  how 
often  has  party  intemperance  produced  long  contin- 
ued agitations  in  families  and  communities,  and  even 
civil  war,  and  bloody  persecutions.  To  a  dread- 
ful extent  this  species  of  intoxication  prevailed  in  the 
times  of  the  Messiah  and  his  apostles.  Paul  was  ex- 
ceedingly mad  with  this  distemper  prior  to  his  con- 
version— so  mad  that  he  verily  thought  he  ought  to 
do  many  things  contrary  to  Jesus  and  his  humble 
disciples.  In  every  country  where  persecution  has 
raged,  the  mischiefs  have  originated  in  party  spirit, 
party  intemperance,  and  censorious  judging. 

In  the  political  struggles  of  our  country,  we  have 
had  much  evidence  of  the  mischievous  effects  of 
party  intemperance.     In  some  instances  it  has  seem- 

H 


102 


LETTERS 


ed  as  if  almost  the  whole  population  of  the  country 
were  in  a  state  of  intoxication  at  the  same  time.  Men 
of  rank  and  respectability  in  society  have,  on  such 
occasions,  been  too  often  seen  to  act  like  mad  men, 
rather  than  like  themselves,  in  sober  moments.  But 
times  of  political  excitement  have  not  been  the  only 
occasions,  on  which  party  intemperance  has  disgraced 
the  American  character.  What  should  be  said  of 
our  religious  or  anti-religious  scenes  of  party  intem- 
perance 1  How  often  have  the  professed  disciples  of 
Him  who  was  meek  and  lowly  been  so  intoxicated  by 
party  passions  as  to  feel  above  all  obligations  to  sub- 
mit to  the  precepts  of  their  Lord,  in  regard  to  judg- 
ing one  another,  and  doing  to  others  as  they  would 
that  others  should  do  unto  them  ?  How  often  have 
even  whole  sects  been  denounced,  including  thou- 
sands of  whom  the  defamer  was  wholly  ignorant,  as 
to  their  moral  characters  !  Those  who  have  witnes- 
sed scenes  of  intoxication  by  hard  drinking,  may 
have  observed  how  strangely  men  will  talk  when  their 
passions  are  excited  by  strong  drink  ;  how  unguard- 
ed they  often  are  in  their  remarks ;  how  bitter  in 
their  revilings,  and  how  foolish  in  their  pretended 
reasonings.  Similar  things  are  witnessed  in  men 
when  intoxicated  with  party  spirit. 

The  inquiry  naturally  occurs.  Is  there  no  remedy 
for  party  intemperance  ?  Must  the  Christian  religion 
be  forever  thus  disgraced  by  its  professed  admirers 
and  votaries.  For  a  time  it  seemed  a  hopeless  en- 
terprise to  attempt  a  suppression  of  the  other  species 
of  intemperance.     Soon,  however,  a  hope  was  exci- 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  103 

ted  that  by  due  exertions  many  moderate  drinkers 
might  be  induced  to  give  up  their  habit  before  they 
should  pass  the  bounds  of  temperance  ,  and  that  ma- 
ny might  be  saved  from  forming  the  habit  of  moder- 
ate drinking.  It  was  hardly  expected  that  men  might 
be  reclaimed  who  had  advanced  far  in  the  road  of 
intoxication.  Their  case  was  deemed  nearly  hope- 
less. It  was,  however,  found  that  the  moderate  use 
of  ardent  spirits  at  stated  periods,  exposed  men  of 
become  drunkards  ;  that  by  daily  indulgence  a  thirst 
was  excited  which  endangered  both  body  and  soul, 
— and  that  entire  abstinence  from  the  use  of  ardent 
spirits  was  the  path  of  safety.  Many  thousands  have 
become  convinced  of  this,  and  have  adopted  the  pol- 
icy,— among  whom  are  an  unexpected  number  of 
those  who  were  supposed  to  be  past  recovery,  and 
bound  over  by  intemperate  habits  to  perish  as  drunk- 
ards. What  happy  results  of  a  few  years  exertion  ! 
When  all  the  evils  of  party  intemperance  shall 
have  been  disclosed,  they  may  be  found  not  less  ter- 
rific and  portentous  than  the  evils  of  intemperate 
drinking.  Why  then  shall  not  Christians  of  all  de- 
nominations  unite  and  adopt  the  same  saving  policy 
for  both  species  of  intemperance — and  resolve  on 
total  abstinence  from  party  spirit  as  well  as  from  liquid 
fire  ?  Should  this  policy  be  cordially  and  universally, 
or  even  generally  adopted,  it  is  believed  that  im- 
mense advantages  would  speedily  result  to  the  cause 
of  religion,  as  well  as  to  individual  and  social  happi- 
ness. There  is  perhaps  no  case  in  reference  to  which 
it  may  be  more  safely  said,    ''  the  tongue  is  a  fire,  a 


104  LETTERS 

world  of  iniquity  ;  it  setteth  on  fire  the  course  of  na- 
ture, and  is  set  on  fire  of  hell,"  than  when  it  is  em- 
ployed in  censorious  judging,  under  the  control  of 
party  passions.  By  due  obedience  to  the  new  com- 
mandment, the  work  of  thorough  reformation  would 
be  effected.  This  would  imply  total  abstinence  from 
party  spirit,  the  great  source  of  mischief  among 
Christians.  For  it  was  not  party  affection  that  Christ 
exercised  towards  his  disciples,  but  pure,  impartial, 
and  forbearing  love.  This  had  been  the  source  of 
ail  his  conduct  towards  them  when  he  said — '*  This 
is  my  commandment,  that  ye  love  one  another  as  I 
have  loved  you."  With  the  same  love  he  prayed  for 
all  his  disciples,  that  they  all  might  be  one  even  as  he 
and  the  Father  are  one.  To  this  precept  and  this 
prayer  let  the  heart  and  tongue  of  every  Christian 
say.  Amen. — Such  a  revival  of  religion  would  diff"use 
joy  throughout  heaven  and  earth. 


LETTER     XVII. 

THE    GOSPEL    REMEDY    FOR    CONTENTION. 

My  Christian  Brethren^ 

It  would  be  useless  to  investigate  the  causes  of 
a  malady  and  display  its  evils,  if  God  had  failed  to 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  105 

provide  a  remedy.  What  has  been  said  in  preced- 
ing letters  may  seem  to  have  anticipated  the  purpose 
of  the  present ;  but  the  importance  of  the  subject 
may  justify  further  attempt  for  elucidation. 

Admitting  the  correctness  of  Solomon's  maxim — 
"  Only  by  pride  cometh  contention,"  we  may  nat- 
urally infer  that  humility  is  both  a  preventive  and  a 
remedy — a  preventive  if  adopted  in  season,  and  a 
remedy  if  duly  applied  after  the  disease  has  occur- 
red. 

The  first  contention  among  the  professed  disciples 
of  the  Messiah,  of  which  we  have  any  account,  oc- 
curred among  the  Twelve,  whom  he  had  selected 
for  apostles — on  the  question,  "  who  is  the  greatest 
in  the  kingdom  of  heaven  ?" — Or  as  Luke  more  de- 
finitely states  the  case,  "  There  was  a  strife  among 
them  which  of  them  should  be  the  greatest."  What 
but  pride  could  have  originated  this  contention  1 
What  but  humility  was  wanting  to  have  prevented 
it  1  And  what  but  humility  could  be  a  proper  re- 
medy after  the  strife  had  occurred  ?  This  was  in 
fact  the  remedy  prescribed  by  the  great  Physician. 
As  was  observed  in  a  preceding  letter,  the  first  time 
Christ  discoursed  with  the  Twelve  concerning  their 
strife,  "  He  called  a  little  child  and  set  him  in  the 
midst  of  them  and  said.  Verily  I  say  unto  you,  except 
ye  be  converted,  and  become  as  little  children,  ye 
shall  not  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  Who- 
soever, therefore,  shall  humble  himself  as  this  little 
child,  the  same  is  greatest  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven." 
Matt,  xviii.  2,  3,  4.     Mark  and  Luke  have  recorded 


106  LETTERS 

some  observations  made  by  our  Lord,  which  were 
omitted  by  Matthew.  "  If  any  man  desire  to  be 
first  of  all,  the  same  shall  be  last  of  all."  Mark  ix. 
35.  ''  For  he  that  is  least  among  you  all,  the  same 
shall  be  great.'^     Luke  ix.  48. 

Notwithstanding  the  admonition  thus  given,  Jesus 
had  further  occasion  to  interpose  his  authority  and 
instructions,  to  check  the  ambition  of  his  disciples, 
and  put  an  end  to  their  strife.  It  appears  to  have 
been,  after  what  has  been  related  that  James  and 
John  had  the  confidence  to  request  the  two  higher 
offices,  or  to  say  to  him  "  Grant  unto  us  that  we  may 
sit  one  on  thy  right  hand,  and  the  other  on  thy  left, 
in  thy  glory."  It  is  evident  that  the  other  disciples 
were  present  when  Jesus  replied  to  this  request  ; 
and  what  followed  his  reply  I  shall  state  according 
to  the  translation  of  Dr.  Campbell. 

"  The  ten  having  heard  this  conceived  indigna- 
tion against  James  and  John.  But  Jesus  having 
called  them  together,  said  to  them — "  Ye  know  that 
those  who  are  accounted  princes  of  the  nations 
domineer  over  them,  and  their  great  ones  exercise 
authority  upon  them ;  but  it  must  not  be  so  among 
you.  On  the  contrary,  whosoever  would  be  great 
among  you  shall  be  your  servant ;  and  whosoever 
would  be  chief  of  all  shall  be  the  slave  of  all.  For 
even  the  Son  of  man  came  not  to  be  served,  but  to 
serve,  and  to  give  his  life  a  ransom  for  many." 
Mark  X.  41—45. 

Luke  has  reported  the  words  of  Christ  in  a  differ- 
ent form,  but  in  a  manner  forcible  and  impressive  : 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  107 

"  The  kings  of  the  nations  exercise  dominion  over 
them,  and  they  who  oppress  them  are  styled  bene- 
factors. But  with  you  it  must  be  otherwise.  Nay, 
let  the  greatest  among  you  be  as  the  smaller  ;  and 
him  who  governeth  as  he  who  serveth.  For  whether 
is  greater  he  who  is  at  table  or  he  who  serveth  ?  Is 
not  he  that  sitteth  at  table  ?  Yet  I  am  among  you 
as  one  that  serveth."     Luke  xxii.     25 — 28. 

The  discourses  of  Christ  on  these  occasions  were 
illustrative  of  the  principle  which  he  so  repeatedly 
announced,  ''  Whosoever  exalteth  himself  shall  be 
abased  ;  and  he  who  humbleth  himself  shall  be  ex- 
alted." It  seems  to  have  been  his  purpose  to  lay 
the  axe  at  the  root  of  the  tree  of  contention,  by  teach- 
ing that  greatness  or  dignity  in  his  kingdom  was  not 
to  be  estimated  according  to  worldly  maxims  or 
principles, — not  by  the  amount  of  wealth  which  a 
person  may  amass,  nor  by  the  splendor  of  his  talents 
or  acquirements,  nor  by  the  height  of  his  official 
station  ;  but  that  in  God's  esteem,  a  man  is  "  great" 
in  proportion  as  he  possesses  a  humble  and  benevo- 
lent mind — a  disposition  to  do  or  to  suffer  whatever 
may  be  necessary  to  the  good  of  others — a  disposition 
"not  to  be  served,  but  to  serve."  Hence  his  own 
example  was  proposed  for  their  imitation.  A  similar 
lesson  was  taught  the  apostles  the  evening  before  the 
crucifixion,  when  Jesus  washed  their  feet. 

The  disposition  of  mind  which  was  thus  made  the 
standard  of  dignity  or  greatness  is  the  spirit  of  obe- 
dience. Hence,  in  the  sermon  on  the  mount,  Jesus 
said,  "  Whosoever,  therefore,  shall  break  one  of  these 


108  LETTERS 

least  commandments,"  or  even  the  least  of  these  com- 
mandments, "  and  shall  teach  men  so,  shall  be  called 
least  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven  ;"  but  whosoever  shall 
do  and  teach  them  shall  be  called  great  in  the  king- 
dom of  heaven."  Matt.  v.  19.  On  the  same  princi- 
ple he  also  said  "  Love  your  enemies,  and  do  good 
and  lend,  hoping  for  nothing  again,  and  your  reward 
shall  be  great,  and  ye  shall  be  called  the  Children 
OP  THE  HIGHEST  J  for  Hc  is  good  uuto  the  unthank- 
ful and  to  the  evil.  Luke  vii.  35.  The  same  dis- 
position is  by  Paul  denominated  love  or  charity. 
1  Cor.  xiii,  which  he  says  "  suffereth  long  and  is 
kind — envieth  not — vaunteth  not  itself — is  not  puffed 
up — doth  not  behave  itself  unseemly — seeketh  not  her 
own."  This,  too,  is  what  James  calls  the  "  wisdom 
that  is  from  above,  which  is  first  pure,  then  peacea- 
ble, gentle,  easy  to  be  entieated,  full  of  mercy  and 
good  fruits,  without  partiality  and  without  hypoc- 
risy ;"  and  this  he  mentions  in  contrast  with  that 
diabolical  wisdom  whence  cometh  envying,  strife, 
confusion  and  every  evil  work."  See  James  iii.  14 
—17. 

Possessing  in  perfection  the  humble,  peaceable 
and  benevolent  temper,  '*  the  Son  of  man  came  not 
to  be  served  but  to  serve,  and  to  give  his  life  a  ran- 
som for  many  ?"  In  view  of  this  glorious  example, 
John  says,  "  we  ought  also  to  lay  down  our  lives  for 
the  brethren."  The  meaning  is  supposed  to  be  this, 
that  Christians  should  possess  the  same  disposition 
that  was  displayed  by  Christ,  and  be  ready  to  do  or 
to  suffer  whatever  may  be  necessary  for  the  happiness 
of  others,  or  the  good  of  the  Messiah's  kingdom. 


TO   CHRISTIANS.  109 

Here  I  may  ask,  what  can  be  more  obvious   than 
that   the   humble  and  benevolent   temper  required 
and  exemplified  by  the  Saviour,  is  totally  incompati- 
ble   with   that   bitterness,    reviling  and  contention 
which  is  so  frequently  manifested  by   different  sects 
of  Christians  one  towards  the  other  ?     Let  the  prin- 
ciple of    spiritual   dignity   be   duly    esteemed — let 
Christians  know  and  feel  that  he  only   "  who  hum- 
bleth  himself  shall  be  exalted,"  and  let  the   meek 
and  benevolent   spirit  of  the  Messiah  be  manifest- 
ed by  the  people  of  the  several  sects  in  their  treat- 
ment of  each  other  ;  then  it  will  be  seen  that  the 
spirit  of  the  Gospel  is  a  remedy  for  those  contentions 
which  have   so  long  been  a  reproach  to  Christians, 
and  a  stumbling  block  to  unbelievers.     Water  is  no 
better  adapted  to  extinguish  material   fire  than  hu- 
mility is  to  put  out  the  fires  of  contention   among 
brethren.     But  all  liquids  are  not  adapted  to  quench 
fire.    Brandy,  if  poured  on  ever  so  abundantly,  would 
increase  the  flame.     In  like  manner  party  spirit — 
which  too  frequently  passes  for  religion,  only  serves 
to  increase  the  flames  of  strife,   and  to  destroy  the 
happiness  of  society. 

Humility  disposes  a  person  to  be  jealous  of  him- 
self, and  to  observe  his  own  imperfections.  The 
humble  man  will  naturally  discover  many  defects  in 
himself,  which  are  not  visible  to  others,  and  which 
perhaps  he  cannot  see  in  them.  Hence  it  will  be  an 
object  of  his  care  "  not  to  think  more  highly  of  him- 
self than  he  ought  to  think,"  and  to  be  one  of  the 
number  of  Christians  who  comply  with  another  of 


110  LETTERS 

Paul's  exhortations: — *'  Doing  nothing  through  con- 
tention or  vain  glory ;  but  in  humility  of  mind  esteem- 
ing others  better  than  yourselves."  Philippians  ii.  5. 
Newcombe's  translation. 

Humility  is  not  only  meek  but  benevolent  and  for- 
giving. It  seeks  to  "  overcome  evil  with  good." 
Hence  it  is  certain,  that  the  more  there  is  of  humili- 
ty among  Christians,  the  less  there  will  be  of  con- 
tention. Many  of  the  contentions  among  Christians 
are  occasioned  by  that  unruly  evil  the  tongue  *'  which 
setteth  on  fire  the  course  of  nature,  and  is  set  on 
fire  of  hell."  Now  what  can  be  named  short  of 
death  or  paralysis,  which  is  more  sure  to  restrain 
the  tongue  from  sarcasm  and  evil  speaking,  than  hu- 
mility of  mind  ?  The  more  humble  a  man  is  the 
more  conscious  he  is  of  his  own  liability  to  errors  of 
the  understanding  and  of  the  heart ;  and  this  con- 
sciousness united  with  benevolence  will  dispose  him 
to  be  candid  towards  others,  and  to  do  unto  them  as 
he  would  that  they  should  do  unto  him.  To  illus- 
trate the  nature  of  humility,  I  will  state  a  supposable 
case. 

In  a  time  of  great  excitement  and  party  strife,  a 
minister  sits  down  to  write  a  sermon  in  vindication 
of  some  disputed  doctrine,  which  he  believes  to  be 
of  great  importance.  But  having  failed  to  call  hu- 
mility to  his  aid,  he  writes  under  the  influence  of 
party  passions.  As  he  proceeds,  he  grows  warmer 
and  warmer,  with  feelings  of  contempt  or  resentment 
towards  all  who  have  opposed  his  doctrine.  He  is 
not  contented  with  producing  arguments  in  its  favor ; 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  Ill 

he  must  give  vent  to  his  passions  against  dissenters. 
He  boldly  accuses  them  of  gross  errors  in  their  inter- 
pretations of  the  Scriptures ;  and  imputes  these  errors 
to  the  wickedness  of  their  hearts  ;  and  fails  not  to 
reproach  them  either  as  heretics  or  as  bigots.  Thus, 
while  he  wantonly  calumniates  others  as  destitute  of 
the  gospel  temper,  he  evinces  a  deplorable  defect 
in  his  own  heart.  But  prior  to  the  time  for  deliver- 
ing his  discourse,  some  affecting  event  of  providence 
occurs  that  calls  him  to  deep  reflection,  occasions  a 
favorable  change  of  feeling,  gives  humility  leave  to 
rise  and  speak  for  herself.  Hence  occurs  the  follow- 
ing soliloquy  : — 

'  What  have  I  written  for  a  sermon  to  be  delivered 
by  myself,  as  the  ambassador  of  Him  who  was  "  meek 
and  lowly  of  heart?"  He  exercised  forbearance  to- 
wards his  erring  Apostles,  during  the  whole  course 
of  his  ministry,  though  he  knew  them  to  be  in  gross 
errors  of  opinion  ;  yet  I  have  reproached  hundreds 
of  his  professed  disciples  as  his  enemies  ;  and  have 
said  much  to  excite  against  them  the  contempt  of 
others.  But  why  all  this  rashness  1  They  indeed 
differ  from  me  in  their  interpretations  of  some  passa- 
ges of  Scripture  ;  but  if  this  be  a  good  reason  for  me 
to  be  offended  with  them,  why  may  not  they  as  justly 
be  offended  with  me  1  Are  not  some  of  them  at  least 
possessed  of  as  good  talents  as  myself?  May  they 
not  have  had  as  good  advantages  for  acquiring  knowl- 
edge 1  and  how  do  I  know  that  they  have  been  less 
honest  and  impartial  in  their  inquiries  than  I  have 
been  in  mine  ?     How  has  it  happened  that  I  have 


112  LETTERS 

been  so  forward  to  accuse  them,  and  yet  so  backward 
in  regard  to  suspecting  myself?  Could  this  be  the 
work  of  humility  or  benevolence  ?  Have  I  done  to 
others  as  I  would  that  they  should  do  to  me  1  Even 
taking  it  for  granted  that  they  are  bad  men,  is  my 
sermon  adapted  to  do  them  or  any  body  else  any 
good  ?  Will  it  not  give  far  more  proof  of  wrong  in 
me  than  of  wrong  in  them  ?  I  indeed  have  accused 
them  ;  but  I  have  done  it  with  a  temper  which  is  the 
reverse  of  what  is  required  in  the  gospel  of  every 
disciple  of  Christ.  I  will  therefore  revise  the  ser- 
mon, and  erase  every  word  which  shall  appear  to  me 
inconsistent  with  that  love  which  worketh  no  evil  to 
its  neighbor.' 

Such  I  think  would  be  the  natural  operations  of 
humility,  if  allowed  to  speak  in  the  supposed  case  ; 
and  this  illustration  is  capable  of  being  applied  in  a 
great  variety  of  different  circumstances.  If  Chris- 
tians would  but  listen  to  the  dictates  of  humility,  in- 
stead of  the  suggestions  of  self-esteem  and  party 
passions,  it  is  very  certain  that  most  of  the  occasions 
of  strife  would  be  avoided — a  more  salutary  charac- 
ter would  be  given  not  only  to  sermons,  but  to  con- 
versations, and  to  the  various  publications  on  religious 
subjects.  Should  the  tongue  and  the  pen  be  duly 
subjected  to  the  control  of  such  a  disposition  as  in- 
duced "  even  the  Son  of  Man  to  come  not  to  be  ser- 
ved, but  to  serve,  and  to  give  his  life  a  ransom  for 
many,"  it  might  soon  be  found  a  possible  thing  for 
men  of  different  opinions  to  be  united  in  affection, 
and  to  love  one  another  with  a  pure  heart  fervently. 


TO   CHRISTIANS.  113 

The  tender  affection  which  existed  between  Jesus 
and  his  Apostles,  while  they  differed  so  greatly  in 
opinion  on  some  important  subjects,  is  a  proof  that 
unity  of  opinion  is  not  essential  to  mutual  affection. 
He  indeed  had  occasion  to  reprove  his  apostles  for 
their  ambition  and  contention  ;  but  he  did  it  in  such 
meekness  and  love  that  it  occasioned  no  alienation. 
Though  he  well  knew  their  errors  of  opinion,  he  did 
not  go  about  the  country  denouncing  or  reproaching 
them,  either  as  heretics  or  as  bigots.  Notwithstand- 
ing all  their  imperfections  Jesus  loved  them  to  the 
end  of  his  ministry ;  and  never  perhaps  did  he  evince 
towards  them  more  sincere  and  tender  affection  than 
in  his  last  interview  with  them,  and  in  his  prayer  for 
them,  prior  to  the  crucifixion.  In  what  way  then 
can  Christians  of  the  present  age  better  evince  love 
to  Christ,  than  by  imitating  this  benignant  and  for- 
bearing example,  and  by  obeying  his  commandment, 
*'Love  one  another  as  I  have  loved  you  ?"  However 
high  may  be  our  opinion  of  his  natural  dignity,  or 
however  confident  and  loud  we  may  be  in  asserting 
that  opinion,  this  will  not  insure  his  approbation. 
He  was  "  meek  and  lowly  of  heart,"  and  it  Was  his 
"  meat  and  drink"  to  do  his  Father's  will.  If  the 
same  mind  is  in  us  that  was  in  him,  we  shall  be  ac- 
knowledged as  his  friends  and  disciples  indeed. 
Without  this  we  shall  be  found  wanting.  For  thus 
saith  our  Lord  and  Judge — "Not  every  one  that 
saith  unto  me  Lord,  Lord,  shall  enter  into  the  king- 
dom of  heaven ;  but  he  that  docth  the  will  of  my  Fa- 
ther who  is  in  heaven. ^^ 


114  LETTERS 


LETTER    XVIII 


CONCLUSION. 


My  Christian  Brethren, 

In  preceding  letters  I  have  attempted  to  unveil 
some  of  the  causes  and  evils  of  contention  among 
Christians,  that  they  may  be  seen  in  a  true  light.  It 
has  been  my  aim  to  write  with  friendly  feelings  to- 
wards my  brethren  of  all  denominations, — and  to 
express  my  views  in  a  dispassionate  and  inoffensive 
manner.  But  if  in  this  I  have  failed,  or  should  it  be 
thought  that  I  have  misinterpreted  some  passages  of 
scripture,  still  I  hope  that  my  readers  will  not  regard 
my  faults  as  an  excuse  for  omitting  a  thorough  exam- 
ination of  the  subject  for  themselves.  For  however 
imperfect  my  efforts  may  have  been,  the  subject  is 
unquestionably  of  great  practical  importance.  It  is 
my  belief  that  duelling  can  be  as  easily  vindicated 
on  Gospel  principles,  as  the  mutual  revilings  of  Chris- 
tians of  different  opinions.  So  far  as  any  of  my  writ- 
ings may  have  evinced  an  unkind  or  a  censorious  spir- 
it, I  would  humbly  implore  the  forgiveness  of  God, 
and  the  forgiveness  of  all  my  fellow  Christians  who 
have  been  injured  by  my  remarks,  or  misled  by  my 
example.  I  have  doubtless  often  erred  in  the  opin- 
ions I  have  expressed,  while  I  verily  believed  them 
to  be  correct.  As  an  excuse  for  such  errors  I  may 
plead  the  fallibility  of  my  understanding,  or  the  want 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  115 

of  means  to  obtain  correct  views.  For  my  con- 
science bears  me  witness,  that  truth  has  been  the  ob- 
ject of  my  inquiries,  and  that  I  have  never  intention- 
ally published  erroneous  opinions.  But  if  I  have 
indulged  bitter  or  unchristian  feelings  towards  any 
of  my  brethren,  for  these  I  have  no  excuse  to  make ; 
but  must  plead  guilty,  and  supplicate  for  pardoning 
mercy. 

Of  the  Turks  it  has  been  said — *'  Their  religion 
inspires  them  with  contempt  and  hatred  for  those  of 
another  creed."  It  is  to  be  feared  that  this  may  be 
said  of  too  many  who  bear  the  name  of  Christians  ; 
but  if  so,  it  is  ^'  their  religion" — not  the  religion 
taught  by  Jesus  Christ,  which  bears  such  bitter  fruit. 
His  religion,  like  the  Father  from  whom  it  descend- 
ed, seeks  the  good  of  all.  It  is  that  "  wisdom"  from 
above,  which  is  "  full  of  mercy  and  good  fruits." 
When  I  compare  with  this  the  wisdom  which  is  fre- 
quently displayed  in  sectarian  strife,  the  contrast  is 
shocking ;  and  I  seem  to  see  a  cause  for  the  preva- 
lence of  Deism  in  the  most  favored  countries  of  Chris- 
tendom. If  by  any  means  I  should  be  made  to  be- 
lieve that  the  Christian  religion  has  authorized  the 
unkind  and  censorious  spirit  which  has  so  often  agi- 
tated society,  I  should  either  doubt  its  divine  origin, 
or  relinquish  the  idea  that  "  God  is  love."  But  when 
I  perceive  that  all  party  bitterness  and  reviling  are 
forbidden  by  the  Gospel,  and  are  the  reverse  of  what 
its  precepts  enjoin,  my  faith  in  the  divine  origin  of 
this  religion  is  really  strengthened  by  observing  the 
deplorable  contrast.     For  it  then  seems  unquestion- 


116  LETTERS 

able  that  a  religion  so  pure,  so  peaceable,  so  forgiving-, 
and  so  benignant,  must  have  descended  from  above  ; 
that  it  could  not  have  been  invented  by  such  beings 
as  men  have  been  in  all  past  ages.  Indeed  the  char- 
acter of  the  Christian  religion  seems  to  me  one  of 
the  best  proofs  that  there  is  a  God ;  that  he  is  wise 
and  good  ;  and  that  he  has  made  to  men  a  revelation 
of  his  character  and  his  will. 

To  some  persons  it  may  be  gratifying  to  know  that 
the  views  I  have  expressed  in  this  series  of  letters  on 
the  evil  and  danger  of  ascribing  error  of  opinion  to 
wickedness  of  heart,  are  not  the  effect^  of  recent 
changes  in  my  own  mind.  When  I  was  a  Trinita- 
rian, and  nearly  forty  years  ago,  I  published  similar 
views  of  that  principle  in  what  I  then  wrote  to  the 
late  Dr.  Baldwin,  on  the  subject  of ''  Close  Commun- 
ion." Very  soon  after  I  entered  on  the  work  of  the 
ministry,  I  became  dissatisfied  with  the  practice  of 
referring  all  error  of  opinion  on  religious  subjects  to 
a  criminal  source  ;  and  also  with  the  practice  of  re- 
proaching whole  sects  of  Christians  as  destitute  of 
piety,  on  the  ground  of  their  alleged  erroneous  opin- 
ions. The  more  I  have  reflected  on  the  subject  since 
that  period,  the  more  I  have  been  convinced  of  the 
injustice  and  the  danger  of  such  practices.  The 
more  too  I  have  been  convinced  that  such  practices 
imply  a  deplorable  want  of  humility  in  those  who 
adopt  them,  and  an  astonishing  degree  of  blindness 
in  regard  to  their  own  liability  to  err. 

Some  of  the  views  however,  which  are  contained 
in  these  letters  respecting  the  principle  of  dignity 


TO    CHRISTIANS.  117 

established  by  the  Messiah — his  example  in  liis  treat- 
ment of  his  erring  and  contending  apostles,  and  his 
New  Commandment,  are  of  more  recent  origin  in  my 
own  mind.  I  cannot  but  wonder  that  they  did,  not 
occur  to  me  at  an  earlier  period  of  my  inquiries.  If 
these  views  are  correct,  it  is  surely  of  vast  impor- 
tance that  they  should  be  diffused,  clearly  under- 
stood, and  reduced  to  practice  by  Christians  of  ev- 
ery name.  Should  Christians  generally,  adopt  the 
principle  of  spiritual  dignity,  as  stated  by  our  Lord, 
and  conform  to  his  New  Commandment  in  their  treat- 
ment of  each  other  while  of  different  opinions,  there 
will  be  further  occasion  to  adopt  the  animating 
language  of  David — "  Behold  how  good  and  how 
pleasant  it  is  for  brethren  to  dwell  together  in  unity  !" 
The  due  observance  of  that  one  principle,  and  one 
command  would  exclude  from  Christendom  all  na- 
tional hostilities — all  persecution  and  sectarian  strife, 
and  fill  every  Christian  country  with  the  blessed 
fruits  of  love,  peace,  and  joy.  Nor  is  this  all ;  the 
benign  influence  would  be  continually  extending  the 
boundaries  of  Christendom  till  it  should  embrace  all 
the  nations  of  the  earth.  Then  too  would  be  seen  a 
cheerful  compliance  in  every  land  with  Paul's  exhor- 
tation to  the  Colossians  ; — 

*'  But  now  do  ye  put  off  all  these,  anger,  wrath, 
malice,  blasphemy,  filthy  communication  out  of  your 
mouth.  Lie  not  one  to  another,  seeing  that  ye  have 
put  off  the  old  man  with  his  deeds ;  and  have  put  on 
the  new  man,  which  is  renewed  in  knowledge  after 
the  image  of  him  that  created  him  ;  where  there  is 

K 


118  LETTERS    TO    CHRISTIANS. 

neither  Greek  nor  Jew,  circumcision  nor  uncircum- 
cision,  Barbarian  nor  Scythian,  bond  nor  free  ;  but 
Christ  is  all  and  in  all.  Put  on  therefore  as  the  elect 
of  God,  holy  and  beloved,  bowels  of  mercies,  kind- 
ness, humbleness  of  mind,  meekness,  long-suffering  ; 
forbearing  one  another,  and  forgiving  one  another. 
If  any  man  have  a  quarrel  against  any,  even  as  Christ 
forgave  you,  so  also  do  ye.  And  above  all  things, 
put  on  charity,  which  is  the  bond  of  perfectness  ; — 
and  let  the  peace  of  God  rule  in  your  hearts,  to  which 
also  ye  are  called  in  one  body, — and  be  ye  thankful." 
Col.  iii.  8—15. 

Such  a  reformation  as  would  result  from  due  con- 
formity to  this  exhortation,  might  remove  every  doubt 
as  to  the  divine  oricrin  of  the  Christian  reliction,  or 
its  adaptedness  to  promote  the  happiness  of  mankind, 
both  in  this  world,  and  in  the  world  to  come.  To  show 
the  necessity  and  importance  of  such  a  reformation, 
has  been  a  principal  object  in  writing  this  series  of 
letters,  which  is  now  to  be  closed.  The  more  there 
is  in  Christians  of  different  sects  a  disposition  to 
contend  about  "  which  of  them  is  the  greatest,"  the 
more  they  need  to  be  changed  and  reformed.  I 
what  I  have  written  should  on  y  be  the  means  of  ex- 
citing in  myself  and  a  few  of  my  brethren  a  more 
due  consideration  of  what  Christ  said  to  his  apostles 
when  he  saw  them  thus  contending,  my  labors  will 
not  have  been  in  vain  ,•  and  that  these  letters  may  be 
of  use  to  myself,  as  well  as  to  others,  is  the  ardent 
desire  of  your    ffectionate  brother. 

April,  1831.  NOAH  WORCESTER. 


POSTSCRIPT. 

As  a  proof  that  I  have  not  been  alone  in  my 
views  of  the  present  state  of  Christians,  I  subjoin 
the  following  passage  from  the  wdtings  of  the  late 
celebrated  Robert  Hall.  The  extract  is  from  the 
first  paragraph  of  what  he  wrote  "  On  the  Terms  of 
Communion." 

'^  To  see  Christian  societies  regarding  each  other 
with  the  jealousies  of  rival  empires,  each  aiming  to 
raise  itself  on  the  ruin  of  all  others,  making  extrava- 
gant boasts  of  superior  purity,  generally  in  exact 
proportion  to  their  departure  from  it,  and  scarcely 
deigning  to  acknowledge  the  possibility  of  obtaining 
salvation  out  of  their  pale,  is  the  odious  and  dis- 
gusting spectacle  which  modern  Christianity  pre- 
sents. The  bond  of  charity,  which  unites  the  gen- 
uine followers  of  Christ  in  distinction  from  the  world 
is  dissolved  ;  and  the  very  terms,  by  which  it  was 
wont  to  be  denoted,  exclusively  employed  to  express 
a  predilection  for  a  sect.  The  evils  which  result 
from  this  state  of  division  are  incalculable.  It  sup- 
plies infidels  with  their  most  plausible  topics  of  in- 
vective. It  hardens  the  consciences  of  the  irreli- 
gious, weakens  the  hands  of  the  good,  impedes  the 
efficacy  of  prayer,  and  is  probably  the  principal 
obstruction  to  that  ample  effusion  of  the  Spirit  which 
is  essential  to  the  renovation  of  the  world." 

After  the  whole  series  of  Letters  to  Christians 
had  been  prepared  for  the  press,  I  opened  the  first 
volume  of  Mr.  Hall's  writings,  and  my  attention 
was  soon  attracted  by  the  passage  which  has  now 
been  copied.    It  struck  my  mind  as  a  remarkable 


120  POSTSCRIPT. 

epitome  of  what  I  had  written.  The  first  sentence, 
however^  seemed  to  contain  more  of  severity  than 
I  had  allowed  myself  to  express.  But  if  it  be  a 
truth  that  rival  sects  are  chargeable  with  ^'  making 
extravagant  boasts  of  superior  purity,  generally  in  ex- 
act proportion  to  their  departure  from  it,"  what  can 
be  of  greater  importance  to  them  than  that  this  truth 
should  be  understood  ?  A  due  consideration  of  the 
nature  of  humility,  as  contrasted  with  pride,  will  per- 
haps justify  the  sentiment  expressed  by  Mr.  Hall ;  and 
in  this  manner,  though  dead,  he  now  speaks  to  the 
Christian  world.  May  his  admirers  of  every  sect 
duly  hearken  to  his  admonitory  voice,  and  exert 
themselves  to  correct  the  evils  of  which  he  complain- 
ed. In  proportion  as  Christians  shall  possess  the 
true  spirit  of  the  Gospel,  they  must  desire  to  see  a 
reformation  of  such  lamentable  evils  and  inconsis- 
tencies. 

Perhaps  there  are  few  persons  of  any  sect  of  Chris- 
tians who  will  object  to  the  foregoing  letters,  if  they 
can  make  themselves  believe  that  the  remarks  which 
imply  blame  were  meant  to  be  applied  only  to  such 
as  dissent  from  their  creed ;  yet  many  may  be  dis- 
pleased, from  an  apprehension  that  inconsistency 
has  been  intentionally  imputed  to  themselves  or  their 
party.  Let  it  then  be  observed,  that  I  have  written 
the  letters  in  the  belief  that  there  are  errors — both 
of  opinion  and  practice,  in  all  the  denominations  of 
Christians  with  which  I  am  acquainted  ;  and  in  the 
hope  that  there  are  good  people  in  each  sect,  who 
will  deplore  the  existing  evils,  and  exert  their  influ- 
ence to  effect  a  reformation.  N.  W. 


ri'lll'l'lllllimMin^.'  Semmary-Speer  L,l 


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